Firmware
For a more complex device, firmware may provide relatively low-level control as well as hardware abstraction services to higher-level software such as an operating system.
Opler projected that fourth-generation computer systems would have a writable control store (a small specialized high-speed memory) into which microcode firmware would be loaded.
Furthermore, as companies, universities, and marketers wanted to sell computers to laypeople with little technical knowledge, greater automation became necessary to allow a lay-user to easily run programs for practical purposes.
Over time, popular usage extended the word firmware to denote any computer program that is tightly linked to hardware, including BIOS on PCs, boot firmware on smartphones, computer peripherals, or the control systems on simple consumer electronic devices such as microwave ovens and remote controls.
However, unlike most modern operating systems, firmware rarely has a well-evolved automatic mechanism of updating itself to fix any functionality issues detected after shipping the unit.
As of 2010[update], modern vehicles also employ computer-controlled anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and computer-operated transmission control units (TCUs).
The driver can also get in-dash information while driving in this manner, such as real-time fuel economy and tire pressure readings.
He has asserted that low-quality, closed source firmware is a major threat to system security:[11] "Your biggest mistake is to assume that the NSA is the only institution abusing this position of trust – in fact, it's reasonable to assume that all firmware is a cesspool of insecurity, courtesy of incompetence of the highest degree from manufacturers, and competence of the highest degree from a very wide range of such agencies".
As a potential solution to this problem, he has called for declarative firmware, which would describe "hardware linkage and dependencies" and "should not include executable code".
A USB device firmware hack called BadUSB was presented at the Black Hat USA 2014 conference,[15] demonstrating how a USB flash drive microcontroller can be reprogrammed to spoof various other device types to take control of a computer, exfiltrate data, or spy on the user.
[16][17] Other security researchers have worked further on how to exploit the principles behind BadUSB,[18] releasing at the same time the source code of hacking tools that can be used to modify the behavior of different USB devices.
