attack

18 Articles

Arbitrary Code Execution Over Radio

April 7, 2023 by 71 Comments

Computers connected to networks are constantly threatened by attackers who seek to exploit vulnerabilities wherever they can find them. This risk is particularly high for machines connected to the Internet, but any network connection can be susceptible to attacks. As highlighted by security researcher and consultant [Rick Osgood], even computers connected to nothing more than a radio can be vulnerable to attacks if they’re using certain digital modes of communication.

The vulnerability that [Rick] found involves exploiting a flaw in a piece of software called WinAPRS. APRS is a method commonly used in the amateur radio community for sending data over radio, and WinAPRS allows for this functionality on a PC. He specifically sought out this program for vulnerabilities since it is closed-source and hasn’t been updated since 2013. After some analysis, he found a memory bug which was used to manipulate the Extended Instruction Pointer (EIP) register which stores the memory address of the next instruction to be executed by the CPU. This essentially allows for arbitrary code execution on a remote machine via radio.

The exploit was found while using Windows XP because it lacks some of the more modern memory protection features of modern operating systems, but the exploit does still work with Windows 10, just not as reliably and with a bit of extra effort required. It’s a good reminder to use open-source software when possible so issues like these can get resolved, and to regularly install security updates when possible. If you’re looking to delve into the world of APRS in more modern times, take a look at this project which adds APRS to budget transceivers. Just make sure you get your license first.

Security Vulnerabilities In Modern Cars Somehow Not Surprising

March 2, 2023 by 16 Comments

As the saying goes, there’s no lock that can’t be picked, much like there’s no networked computer that can’t be accessed. It’s usually a continual arms race between attackers and defenders — but for some modern passenger vehicles, which are essentially highly mobile computers now, the defenders seem to be asleep at the wheel. The computing systems that control these cars can be relatively easy to break into thanks to manufacturers’ insistence on using wireless technology to unlock or activate them.

This particular vulnerability involves the use of a piece of software called gattacker which exploits vulnerabilities in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), a common protocol not only for IoT devices but also to interface a driver’s smartphone or other wireless key with the vehicle’s security system. By using a man-in-the-middle attack the protocol between the phone and the car can be duplicated and the doors unlocked. Not only that, but this can be done without being physically close to the car as long as a network of some sort is available.

[Kevin2600] successfully performed these attacks on a Tesla Model 3 and a few other vehicles using the seven-year-old gattacker software and methods first discovered by security researcher [Martin Herfurt]. Some other vehicles seem to have patched these vulnerabilities as well, and [Kevin2600] didn’t have universal success with every vehicle, but it does remind us of some other vehicle-based attacks we’ve seen before.

Sick Beats: Using Music And Smartphone To Attack A Biosafety Room

November 23, 2022 by 15 Comments

Imagine a movie featuring a scene set in a top-secret bioweapons research lab. The villain, clad in a bunny suit, strides into the inner sanctum of the facility — one of the biosafety rooms where only the most infectious and deadliest microorganisms are handled. Tension mounts as he pulls out his phone; surely he’ll use it to affect some dramatic hack, or perhaps set off an explosive device. Instead, he calls up his playlist and… plays a song? What kind of villain is this?

As it turns out, perhaps one who has read a new paper on the potential for hacking biosafety rooms using music. The work was done by University of California Irvine researchers [Anomadarshi Barua], [Yonatan Gizachew Achamyeleh], and [Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque], and focuses on the negative pressure rooms found in all sorts of facilities, but are of particular concern where they are used to prevent pathogens from escaping into the world at large. Continue reading “Sick Beats: Using Music And Smartphone To Attack A Biosafety Room” →

The microcontroller described in the article, on the PCB taken out of the kettle

Dumping Encrypted-At-Rest Firmware Of Xiaomi Smart Kettle

May 4, 2022 by 52 Comments

[aleaksah] got himself a Mi Smart Kettle Pro, a kettle with Bluetooth connectivity, and a smartphone app to go with it. Despite all the smarts, it couldn’t be turned on remotely. Energized with his vision of an ideal smart home where he can turn the kettle on in the morning right as he wakes up, he set out to right this injustice. (Russian, translated) First, he tore the kettle down, intending to dump the firmware, modify it, and flash it back. Sounds simple enough — where’s the catch?

This kettle is built around the QN9022 controller, from the fairly open QN902X family of chips. QN9022 requires an external SPI flash chip for code, as opposed to its siblings QN9020 and QN9021 which have internal flash akin to ESP8285. You’d think dumping the firmware would just be a matter of reading that flash, but the firmware is encrypted at rest, with a key unique to each MCU and stored internally. As microcontroller reads the flash chip contents, they’re decrypted transparently before being executed. So, some other way had to be found, involving the MCU itself as the only entity with access to the decryption key.

Continue reading “Dumping Encrypted-At-Rest Firmware Of Xiaomi Smart Kettle” →

Breaking Into A Secure Facility: STM32 Flash

March 24, 2020 by 20 Comments

In a perfect world, everything would be open source. Our current world, on the other hand, has a lot of malicious actors and people willing to exploit trade secrets if given the opportunity, so chip manufacturers take a lot of measures to protect their customers’ products’ firmware. These methods aren’t perfect, though, as [zapb] shows while taking a deeper look into an STM microcontroller.

The STM32F0 and F1 chips rely on various methods of protecting their firmware. The F0 has its debug interface permanently switched off, but the F1 still allows users access to this interface. It uses flash memory read-out protection instead, which has its own set of vulnerabilities. By generating exceptions and exploiting the intended functions of the chip during those exceptions, memory values can be read out of the processor despite the memory read-out protection.

This is a very detailed breakdown of this specific attack on theses controllers, but it isn’t “perfect”. It requires physical access to the debug interface, plus [zapb] was only able to extract about 94% of the internal memory. That being said, while it would be in STM’s best interests to fix the issue, it’s not the worst attack we’ve ever seen on a piece of hardware.

Inside A CAN Bus Mileage Manipulator

March 13, 2020 by 28 Comments

In the days of carburetors and leaf spring suspensions, odometer fraud was pretty simple to do just by disconnecting the cable or even winding the odometer backwards. With the OBD standard and the prevalence of electronics in cars, promises were made by marketing teams that this risk had all but been eliminated. In reality, however, the manipulation of CAN bus makes odometer fraud just as easy, and [Andras] is here to show us exactly how easy with a teardown of a few cheap CAN bus adapters.

We featured another project that was a hardware teardown of one of these devices, but [Andras] takes this a step further by probing into the code running on the microcontroller. One would imagine that basic measures would have been taken by the attackers to obscure code or at least disable debugging modes, but on this one no such effort was made. [Andras] was able to dump the firmware from both of his test devices and start analyzing them.

Analyzing the codes showed identical firmware running on both devices, which made his job half as hard. It looked like the code was executing a type of man-in-the-middle attack on the CAN bus which allowed it to insert the bogus mileage reading. There’s a lot of interesting information in [Andras]’s writeup though, so if you’re interested in CAN bus or attacks like this, it’s definitely worth a read.

Take Security Up A Notch By Adding LEDs

January 12, 2020 by 14 Comments

All computers are vulnerable to attacks by viruses or black hats, but there are lots of steps that can be taken to reduce risk. At the extreme end of the spectrum is having an “air-gapped” computer that doesn’t connect to a network at all, but this isn’t a guarantee that it won’t get attacked. Even transferring files to the computer with a USB drive can be risky under certain circumstances, but thanks to some LED lights that [Robert Fisk] has on his drive, this attack vector can at least be monitored.

Using a USB drive with a single LED that illuminates during a read OR write operation is fairly common, but since it’s possible to transfer malware unknowingly via USB drives, one that has a separate LED specifically for writing operations will help alert a user to any write operations that might be trying to fly under the radar. A recent article by [Bruce Schneier] pointed out this flaw in USB drives, and [Robert] was up to the challenge. His build returns more control to the user by showing them when their drive is accessed and in what way, which can also be used to discover unique quirks of one’s chosen operating system.

[Robert] is pretty familiar with USB drives and their ups and downs as well. A few years ago he built a USB firewall that was able to decrease the likelihood of BadUSB-type attacks. Be careful going down the rabbit hole of device security, though, or you will start seeing potential attacks hidden almost everywhere.