Summary Last year we published research at Black Hat in which we disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in Huawei Kirin SoC’s DDR Controller (DMSS) Access Permission system which allowed some SoC cores or DMA-capable peripherals to directly access secure world memory and completely compromise the entire memory of the SoC. This advisory focuses on a new access permission vulnerability in the same DMSS. The vulnerability can be used to entirely compromise the SoC platform runtime (including all cores running in Secure World) directly from the Baseband. The vulnerability was fixed in February 2022. Vulnerability Details We have identified two related vulnerabilities related to the LPMSS subsystem of Huawei Kirin SoCs.

Summary Last year we published research at Black Hat in which we disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in Huawei Kirin SoC’s DDR Controller (DMSS) Access Permission system which allowed some SoC cores or DMA-capable peripherals to directly access secure world memory and completely compromise the entire memory of the SoC. This advisory focuses on a new access permission vulnerability in the same DMSS. The vulnerability can be used to entirely compromise the SoC platform runtime (including all cores running in Secure World) directly from the Baseband. The vulnerability was fixed in February 2022. Vulnerability Details This vulnerability is very similar to CVE-2021-37107 (“Huawei Peripheral DMA Memory Access Permission Bypass”).

Summary There is a vulnerability in the Huawei Kirin SoC’s DDR Controller (DMSS) Access Permission system which allows the Linux kernel to bypass memory access restrictions and directly compromise multiple privileged subsystems of the SoC. As demonstrated by CVE-2021-3710, CVE-2021-39991, CVE-2021-37115, and CVE-2021-39986, read and write of critical system memory, including secure memory regions, is possible via those subsystems. Therefore, this vulnerability combined with one of CVE-2021-3710, CVE-2021-39991, CVE-2021-37115, or CVE-2021-39986 results in a fully realized chain of elevation of privileges from a kernel-level write primitive to total control of the secure world (TEE). The vulnerability was fixed in February 2022.

Summary In this advisory we are disclosing a signature verification bypass vulnerability in the Huawei recovery mode. The vulnerability can be used not only to apply unauthentic firmware updates but also to achieve arbitrary code execution in the recovery mode. Combining this advisory with the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2021-40055, an attacker can achieve remote code execution without user interraction from the position of a network MITM. The vulnerability was fixed in February 2022. Vulnerability Details Huawei devices - both those running Android and those running HarmonyOS - implement a proprietary update solution which can be applied in various ways. The methods are all public and differ in how the process is triggered (manually or automatically) and how the update media file to be applied is supplied (downloaded over Wi-Fi or supplied from a memory card).

Summary In this advisory we are disclosing a vulnerability in the Huawei Over-The-Air (OTA) update implementation that allows bypassing SSL protections and execute a Man-In-The-Middle attack. The vulnerability was fixed in March 2022. Vulnerability Details Huawei devices - both those running Android and those running HarmonyOS - use Huawei’s custom implementation for applying OTA updates. OTA updates are packaged into a zip container. The update mechanism has several checks that are meant to ensure the authenticity of OTA images before they are applied: the over-the-air download is supposed to happen over a secure connection to prevent Man-In-The-Middle attacks, the zip file has a cryptographic signature that is verified by the update process, and finally the contents of the zip file include further authentications tags.

Summary In this advisory we are disclosing a heap overflow vulnerability in the MediaTek baseband. The vulnerability can be exploited to gain arbitrary code execution in the context of the baseband runtime. The vulnerability was fixed in 2020 in some models, and received a CVE and more widely deployed fix in 2021. Vulnerability Details When processing the CSN.1 decoding of the “E-UTRAN Individual Priority Parameters” element, the function rr_decode_eutran_individual_priority_para_description implements a two-depth nested repetition (Repeated Individual E-UTRAN Priority Parameters Description struct and its child element EARFCN). The outer loop is iterated by checking on the single bit representing the ongoing repetition, and while that equals “1”, a new Repeated Individual E-UTRAN Priority Parameters Description struct is processed.

Summary In this advisory we are disclosing a heap overflow vulnerability in the MediaTek baseband. The vulnerability can be exploited to gain arbitrary code execution in the context of the baseband runtime. The vulnerability was fixed in 2020 in some models, and received a CVE and more widely deployed fix in 2021. Vulnerability Details When processing the CSN.1 decoding of the “UTRAN (3G) Individual Priority Parameters” element, the function rr_decode_3g_individual_priority_para_description implements a two-depth nested repetition (Repeated Individual UTRAN Priority Parameters Description struct and its child element FDD-ARFCN). The outer loop is iterated by checking the single bit representing the ongoing repetition, and while that equals “1”, a new Repeated Individual UTRAN Priority Parameters Description struct is processed.

Summary In this advisory we are disclosing a heap overflow vulnerability in the MediaTek baseband. The vulnerability can be exploited to gain arbitrary code execution in the context of the baseband runtime. The vulnerability was fixed in 2020 in some models, and received a CVE and more widely deployed fix in 2021. Vulnerability Details When processing the CSN.1 decoding of the “E-UTRAN IPP with extended EARFCNs” element, the function rr_decode_eutran_ipp_extended_earfcns implements a two-depth nested repetition (Repeated Individual E-UTRAN PP with extended EARFCNs Description struct and its child element EARFCN_extended). The outer loop is iterated by checking the single bit representing the ongoing repetition, and while that equals “1”, a new Repeated Individual E-UTRAN PP with extended EARFCNs Description struct is processed.

Summary In this advisory we are disclosing a heap overflow vulnerability in the MediaTek baseband. The vulnerability can be exploited to gain arbitrary code execution in the context of the baseband runtime. The vulnerability was fixed in 2020 in some models, and received a CVE and more widely deployed fix in 2021. Vulnerability Details When processing the GSM Radio Resource Management Channel Release message, the CSN.1 decoding of the “Cell selection indicator after release of all TCH and SDCCH” information element contains a heap buffer overflow in the function FDD_csrr_decode_redirection_ie. The “Cell selection indicator after release of all TCH and SDCCH” is a type 4 information element with a minimum length of 4 octets.

There is a memory management and a path traversal vulnerability in the vision DSP kernel driver of Exynos S20 devices. These vulnerabilities can be leveraged by a malicious untrusted application to permanently disable the device until it is factory reset. Vulnerability Details The Exynos DSP driver implements an ioctl call that allows applications to upload a custom model (graph) for the dsp device. The DSP_IOC_LOAD_GRAPH ioctl handler of the /dev/dsp device receives an array of names of the graph binaries to be loaded. The dsp_kernel_alloc function appends the “.elf” extension to the user-supplied name then uses the kernel’s request firmware API to load it from the file system.