Entries Tagged "firmware"

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New Windows/Linux Firmware Attack

Interesting attack based on malicious pre-OS logo images:

LogoFAIL is a constellation of two dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities that have lurked for years, if not decades, in Unified Extensible Firmware Interfaces responsible for booting modern devices that run Windows or Linux….

The vulnerabilities are the subject of a coordinated mass disclosure released Wednesday. The participating companies comprise nearly the entirety of the x64 and ARM CPU ecosystem, starting with UEFI suppliers AMI, Insyde, and Phoenix (sometimes still called IBVs or independent BIOS vendors); device manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and HP; and the makers of the CPUs that go inside the devices, usually Intel, AMD or designers of ARM CPUs….

As its name suggests, LogoFAIL involves logos, specifically those of the hardware seller that are displayed on the device screen early in the boot process, while the UEFI is still running. Image parsers in UEFIs from all three major IBVs are riddled with roughly a dozen critical vulnerabilities that have gone unnoticed until now. By replacing the legitimate logo images with identical-looking ones that have been specially crafted to exploit these bugs, LogoFAIL makes it possible to execute malicious code at the most sensitive stage of the boot process, which is known as DXE, short for Driver Execution Environment.

“Once arbitrary code execution is achieved during the DXE phase, it’s game over for platform security,” researchers from Binarly, the security firm that discovered the vulnerabilities, wrote in a whitepaper. “From this stage, we have full control over the memory and the disk of the target device, thus including the operating system that will be started.”

From there, LogoFAIL can deliver a second-stage payload that drops an executable onto the hard drive before the main OS has even started.

Details.

It’s an interesting vulnerability. Corporate buyers want the ability to display their own logos, and not the logos of the hardware makers. So the ability has to be in the BIOS, which means that the vulnerabilities aren’t being protected by any of the OS’s defenses. And the BIOS makers probably pulled some random graphics library off the Internet and never gave it a moment’s thought after that.

Posted on December 12, 2023 at 7:01 AM • View Comments

Another Malware with Persistence

Here’s a piece of Chinese malware that infects SonicWall security appliances and survives firmware updates.

On Thursday, security firm Mandiant published a report that said threat actors with a suspected nexus to China were engaged in a campaign to maintain long-term persistence by running malware on unpatched SonicWall SMA appliances. The campaign was notable for the ability of the malware to remain on the devices even after its firmware received new firmware.

“The attackers put significant effort into the stability and persistence of their tooling,” Mandiant researchers Daniel Lee, Stephen Eckels, and Ben Read wrote. “This allows their access to the network to persist through firmware updates and maintain a foothold on the network through the SonicWall Device.”

To achieve this persistence, the malware checks for available firmware upgrades every 10 seconds. When an update becomes available, the malware copies the archived file for backup, unzips it, mounts it, and then copies the entire package of malicious files to it. The malware also adds a backdoor root user to the mounted file. Then, the malware rezips the file so it’s ready for installation.

“The technique is not especially sophisticated, but it does show considerable effort on the part of the attacker to understand the appliance update cycle, then develop and test a method for persistence,” the researchers wrote.

Posted on March 9, 2023 at 8:33 PM • View Comments

BlackLotus Malware Hijacks Windows Secure Boot Process

Researchers have discovered malware that “can hijack a computer’s boot process even when Secure Boot and other advanced protections are enabled and running on fully updated versions of Windows.”

Dubbed BlackLotus, the malware is what’s known as a UEFI bootkit. These sophisticated pieces of malware target the UEFI—short for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface—the low-level and complex chain of firmware responsible for booting up virtually every modern computer. As the mechanism that bridges a PC’s device firmware with its operating system, the UEFI is an OS in its own right. It’s located in an SPI-connected flash storage chip soldered onto the computer motherboard, making it difficult to inspect or patch. Previously discovered bootkits such as CosmicStrand, MosaicRegressor, and MoonBounce work by targeting the UEFI firmware stored in the flash storage chip. Others, including BlackLotus, target the software stored in the EFI system partition.

Because the UEFI is the first thing to run when a computer is turned on, it influences the OS, security apps, and all other software that follows. These traits make the UEFI the perfect place to launch malware. When successful, UEFI bootkits disable OS security mechanisms and ensure that a computer remains infected with stealthy malware that runs at the kernel mode or user mode, even after the operating system is reinstalled or a hard drive is replaced.

ESET has an analysis:

The number of UEFI vulnerabilities discovered in recent years and the failures in patching them or revoking vulnerable binaries within a reasonable time window hasn’t gone unnoticed by threat actors. As a result, the first publicly known UEFI bootkit bypassing the essential platform security feature—UEFI Secure Boot—is now a reality. In this blogpost we present the first public analysis of this UEFI bootkit, which is capable of running on even fully-up-to-date Windows 11 systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled. Functionality of the bootkit and its individual features leads us to believe that we are dealing with a bootkit known as BlackLotus, the UEFI bootkit being sold on hacking forums for $5,000 since at least October 2022.

[…]

  • It’s capable of running on the latest, fully patched Windows 11 systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled.
  • It exploits a more than one year old vulnerability (CVE-2022-21894) to bypass UEFI Secure Boot and set up persistence for the bootkit. This is the first publicly known, in-the-wild abuse of this vulnerability.
  • Although the vulnerability was fixed in Microsoft’s January 2022 update, its exploitation is still possible as the affected, validly signed binaries have still not been added to the UEFI revocation list. BlackLotus takes advantage of this, bringing its own copies of legitimate—but vulnerable—binaries to the system in order to exploit the vulnerability.
  • It’s capable of disabling OS security mechanisms such as BitLocker, HVCI, and Windows Defender.
  • Once installed, the bootkit’s main goal is to deploy a kernel driver (which, among other things, protects the bootkit from removal), and an HTTP downloader responsible for communication with the C&C and capable of loading additional user-mode or kernel-mode payloads.

This is impressive stuff.

Posted on March 8, 2023 at 6:11 AM • View Comments

Hacking a Power Supply

This hack targets the firmware on modern power supplies. (Yes, power supplies are also computers.)

Normally, when a phone is connected to a power brick with support for fast charging, the phone and the power adapter communicate with each other to determine the proper amount of electricity that can be sent to the phone without damaging the device­—the more juice the power adapter can send, the faster it can charge the phone.

However, by hacking the fast charging firmware built into a power adapter, Xuanwu Labs demonstrated that bad actors could potentially manipulate the power brick into sending more electricity than a phone can handle, thereby overheating the phone, melting internal components, or as Xuanwu Labs discovered, setting the device on fire.

Research paper, in Chinese.

Posted on July 21, 2020 at 6:09 AM • View Comments

Security Vulnerabilities in Android Firmware

Researchers have discovered and revealed 146 vulnerabilities in various incarnations of Android smartphone firmware. The vulnerabilities were found by scanning the phones of 29 different Android makers, and each is unique to a particular phone or maker. They were found using automatic tools, and it is extremely likely that many of the vulnerabilities are not exploitable—making them bugs but not security concerns. There is no indication that any of these vulnerabilities were put there on purpose, although it is reasonable to assume that other organizations do this same sort of scanning and use the findings for attack. And since they’re firmware bugs, in many cases there is no ability to patch them.

I see this as yet another demonstration of how hard supply chain security is.

News article.

Posted on November 18, 2019 at 6:33 AM • View Comments

Resetting Your GE Smart Light Bulb

If you need to reset the software in your GE smart light bulb—firmware version 2.8 or later—just follow these easy instructions:

Start with your bulb off for at least 5 seconds.

  1. Turn on for 8 seconds
  2. Turn off for 2 seconds
  3. Turn on for 8 seconds
  4. Turn off for 2 seconds
  5. Turn on for 8 seconds
  6. Turn off for 2 seconds
  7. Turn on for 8 seconds
  8. Turn off for 2 seconds
  9. Turn on for 8 seconds
  10. Turn off for 2 seconds
  11. Turn on

Bulb will flash on and off 3 times if it has been successfully reset.

Welcome to the future!

Posted on July 11, 2019 at 6:24 AM • View Comments

Yubico Security Keys with a Crypto Flaw

Wow, is this an embarrassing bug:

Yubico is recalling a line of security keys used by the U.S. government due to a firmware flaw. The company issued a security advisory today that warned of an issue in YubiKey FIPS Series devices with firmware versions 4.4.2 and 4.4.4 that reduced the randomness of the cryptographic keys it generates. The security keys are used by thousands of federal employees on a daily basis, letting them securely log-on to their devices by issuing one-time passwords.

The problem in question occurs after the security key powers up. According to Yubico, a bug keeps “some predictable content” inside the device’s data buffer that could impact the randomness of the keys generated. Security keys with ECDSA signatures are in particular danger. A total of 80 of the 256 bits generated by the key remain static, meaning an attacker who gains access to several signatures could recreate the private key.

Boing Boing post.

EDITED TO ADD (6/12): From Microsoft TechNet Security Guidance blog (in 2014): “Why We’re Not Recommending ‘FIPS Mode’ Anymore.“

Posted on July 1, 2019 at 5:55 AM • View Comments

Backdoor Built into Android Firmware

In 2017, some Android phones came with a backdoor pre-installed:

Criminals in 2017 managed to get an advanced backdoor preinstalled on Android devices before they left the factories of manufacturers, Google researchers confirmed on Thursday.

Triada first came to light in 2016 in articles published by Kaspersky here and here, the first of which said the malware was “one of the most advanced mobile Trojans” the security firm’s analysts had ever encountered. Once installed, Triada’s chief purpose was to install apps that could be used to send spam and display ads. It employed an impressive kit of tools, including rooting exploits that bypassed security protections built into Android and the means to modify the Android OS’ all-powerful Zygote process. That meant the malware could directly tamper with every installed app. Triada also connected to no fewer than 17 command and control servers.

In July 2017, security firm Dr. Web reported that its researchers had found Triada built into the firmware of several Android devices, including the Leagoo M5 Plus, Leagoo M8, Nomu S10, and Nomu S20. The attackers used the backdoor to surreptitiously download and install modules. Because the backdoor was embedded into one of the OS libraries and located in the system section, it couldn’t be deleted using standard methods, the report said.

On Thursday, Google confirmed the Dr. Web report, although it stopped short of naming the manufacturers. Thursday’s report also said the supply chain attack was pulled off by one or more partners the manufacturers used in preparing the final firmware image used in the affected devices.

This is a supply chain attack. It seems to be the work of criminals, but it could just as easily have been a nation-state.

Posted on June 21, 2019 at 11:42 AM • View Comments

Japanese Government Will Hack Citizens' IoT Devices

The Japanese government is going to run penetration tests against all the IoT devices in their country, in an effort to (1) figure out what’s insecure, and (2) help consumers secure them:

The survey is scheduled to kick off next month, when authorities plan to test the password security of over 200 million IoT devices, beginning with routers and web cameras. Devices in people’s homes and on enterprise networks will be tested alike.

[…]

The Japanese government’s decision to log into users’ IoT devices has sparked outrage in Japan. Many have argued that this is an unnecessary step, as the same results could be achieved by just sending a security alert to all users, as there’s no guarantee that the users found to be using default or easy-to-guess passwords would change their passwords after being notified in private.

However, the government’s plan has its technical merits. Many of today’s IoT and router botnets are being built by hackers who take over devices with default or easy-to-guess passwords.

Hackers can also build botnets with the help of exploits and vulnerabilities in router firmware, but the easiest way to assemble a botnet is by collecting the ones that users have failed to secure with custom passwords.

Securing these devices is often a pain, as some expose Telnet or SSH ports online without the users’ knowledge, and for which very few users know how to change passwords. Further, other devices also come with secret backdoor accounts that in some cases can’t be removed without a firmware update.

I am interested in the results of this survey. Japan isn’t very different from other industrialized nations in this regard, so their findings will be general. I am less optimistic about the country’s ability to secure all of this stuff—especially before the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Posted on January 28, 2019 at 1:40 PM • View Comments

Security of Solid-State-Drive Encryption

Interesting research: “Self-encrypting deception: weaknesses in the encryption of solid state drives (SSDs)“:

Abstract: We have analyzed the hardware full-disk encryption of several SSDs by reverse engineering their firmware. In theory, the security guarantees offered by hardware encryption are similar to or better than software implementations. In reality, we found that many hardware implementations have critical security weaknesses, for many models allowing for complete recovery of the data without knowledge of any secret. BitLocker, the encryption software built into Microsoft Windows will rely exclusively on hardware full-disk encryption if the SSD advertises supported for it. Thus, for these drives, data protected by BitLocker is also compromised. This challenges the view that hardware encryption is preferable over software encryption. We conclude that one should not rely solely on hardware encryption offered by SSDs.

EDITED TO ADD: The NSA is known to attack firmware of SSDs.

EDITED TO ADD (11/13): CERT advisory. And older research.

Posted on November 6, 2018 at 6:51 AM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.