An nameless reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Microsoft’s proprietary protocol, Distant Community Driver Interface Specification (RNDIS), began with a good suggestion. It will allow {hardware} distributors so as to add networking help to USB gadgets with out having to construct them from scratch. There was just one little drawback. RNDIS has no safety to talk of. As Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Linux Basis fellow answerable for secure Linux kernel releases, wrote in November 2022 on the Linux Kernel Mailing Checklist (LKML), “The Microsoft RNDIS protocol is, as designed, insecure and weak on any system that makes use of it with untrusted hosts or gadgets. As a result of the protocol is unimaginable to make safe, simply disable all RNDIS drivers to stop anybody from utilizing them once more.”
He added, in one other message, “The protocol was by no means designed for use with untrusted gadgets. It was created, and we applied help for it, after we trusted USB gadgets that we plugged into our methods, AND we trusted the methods we plugged our USB gadgets into.” That is not the case. Kroah-Hartman concluded, “Immediately, with untrusted hosts and gadgets, it is time simply to retire this protocol. As I discussed within the patch feedback, Android disabled this a few years in the past of their gadgets, with no lack of performance.”
[…] However now, sick and bored with having a built-in Home windows safety exploit in Linux, Kroah-Hartman has determined that sufficient was sufficient. He is disabled all of the RNDIS protocol drivers in Linux’s Git repository. That implies that whereas the RNDIS code continues to be within the Linux kernel, in case you attempt to construct Linux utilizing this new patch, all of your RNDIS drivers shall be damaged and will not construct. That is one step in need of purging RNDIS from Linux.