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Ever wonder why Surface Pro 7 was not Thunderbolt 3 compatible when Microsoft finally introduced USB-C in its range of popular hybrids? Well Microsoft has a reason why all Surface devices are not Thunderbolt compatible, and indeed why they have soldered the RAM (which makes memory upgrade impossible).
So what’s the explanation behind these key moves that have no doubt served to annoy some of the Surface user base?
The answer comes in the form of a Microsoft video clip highlighted on Twitter by WalkingCat.
Surfaces do not have Thunderbolt because it is insecure 🙃 pic.twitter.com/lb7YYOOQ4YApril 25, 2020
As the clip explains, Microsoft does not want the memory to be removable to avoid the security risks associated with this scenario. As the narrator explains, what you can “easily do is freeze the memory with liquid nitrogen” and then use a memory reader to access the data in memory, including the Bitlocker recovery keys.
Now, to be sure, there is a security risk here, but we don’t think there is anything particularly “easy” in going to the extreme of using liquid nitrogen in this way, or that the average Surface user really needs to worry that they might be targeted. such an attack.
And in fact, if an attacker has escaped with your device, there are easier ways to decrypt it and get this data anyway, so it seems like a strange example overall.
Direct concern
The reason for the lack of Thunderbolt support is very similar, that is, it represents a security risk since it offers direct memory access (DMA), or in other words, the possibility that an attacker uses a specially prepared USB device. to access the contents of the memory, and again to the likes of the Bitlocker keys.
So why did Microsoft go USB-C, but leave Thunderbolt 3 out of the equation for Surface products? However, as MS Poweruser, who saw the tweet, points out, with the Windows 10 April 2018 update, Microsoft introduced Kernel DMA Protection to defend machines against the type of DMA memory invasion described. Therefore, we may still see Thunderbolt 3 compatibility on future Surface devices (although we wouldn’t trust that).
As you can imagine, there has been some cynicism in the reaction on Twitter, certainly when it comes to welded RAM. This includes people who point out that soldered memory is a cheaper (and space-saving) way for Microsoft to get things done. And also that it brings an element of planned obsolescence; In other words, not being able to upgrade RAM means the machine is a little less future-proof.
Of course, it’s far from bad news with the internal components of contemporary Surface devices, and to Microsoft’s credit, it has made considerable progress with several of these pieces of hardware in terms of making the SSD user-replaceable. and use less glue (although The Surface Pro 7 unfortunately did not advance in this regard).
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