Google Android – ‘gpsOneXtra’ Data Files Denial of Service

  • 作者: Nightwatch Cybersecurity Research
    日期: 2016-10-11
  • 类别:
    平台:
  • 来源:https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40502/
  • Original at:
    https://wwws.nightwatchcybersecurity.com/2016/10/04/advisory-cve-2016-5348-2/
    
    Summary
    
    Android devices can be crashed remotely forcing a halt and then a soft
    reboot by a MITM attacker manipulating assisted GPS/GNSS data provided
    by Qualcomm. This issue affects the open source code in AOSP and
    proprietary code in a Java XTRA downloader provided by Qualcomm. The
    Android issue was fixed by in the October 2016 Android bulletin.
    Additional patches have been issued by Qualcomm to the proprietary
    client in September of 2016. This issue may also affect other
    platforms that use Qualcomm GPS chipsets and consume these files but
    that has not been tested by us, and requires further research.
    
    Background – GPS and gpsOneXtra
    
    Most mobile devices today include ability to locate themselves on the
    Earth’s surface by using the Global Positioning System (GPS), a system
    originally developed and currently maintained by the US military.
    Similar systems developed and maintained by other countries exist as
    well including Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, and China’s Beidou.
    The GPS signals include an almanac which lists orbit and status
    information for each of the satellites in the GPS constellation. This
    allows the receivers to acquire the satellites quicker since the
    receiver would not need to search blindly for the location of each
    satellite. Similar functionality exists for other GNSS systems. In
    order to solve the problem of almanac acquisition, Qualcomm developed
    the gpsOneXtra system in 2007 (also known as IZat XTRA Assistance
    since 2013). This system provides ability to GPS receivers to download
    the almanac data over the Internet from Qualcomm-operated servers. The
    format of these XTRA files is proprietary but seems to contain current
    satellite location data plus estimated locations for the next 7 days,
    as well as additional information to improve signal acquisition. Most
    Qualcomm mobile chipsets and GPS chips include support for this
    technology. A related Qualcomm technology called IZat adds ability to
    use WiFi and cellular networks for locations in addition to GPS.
    
    Background – Android and gpsOneXtra Data Files
    
    During our network monitoring of traffic originating from an Android
    test device, we discovered that the device makes periodic calls to the
    Qualcomm servers to retrieve gpsOneXtra assistance files. These
    requests were performed almost every time the device connected to a
    WiFi network. As discovered by our research and confirmed by the
    Android source code, the following URLs were used:
    
    http://xtra1.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
    http://xtra2.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
    http://xtra3.gpsonextra.net/xtra.bin
    
    http://xtrapath1.izatcloud.net/xtra2.bin
    http://xtrapath2.izatcloud.net/xtra2.bin
    http://xtrapath3.izatcloud.net/xtra2.bin
    
    WHOIS record show that both domains – gpsonextra.net and izatcloud.net
    are owned by Qualcomm. Further inspection of those URLs indicate that
    both domains are being hosted and served from Amazon’s Cloudfront CDN
    service (with the exception of xtra1.gpsonextra.net which is being
    served directly by Qualcomm). On the Android platform, our inspection
    of the Android source code shows that the file is requested by an
    OS-level Java process (GpsXtraDownloader.java), which passes the data
    to a C++ JNI class
    (com_android_server_location_GnssLocationProvider.cpp), which then
    injects the files into the Qualcomm modem or firmware. We have not
    inspected other platforms in detail, but suspect that a similar
    process is used. Our testing was performed on Android v6.0, patch
    level of January 2016, on a Motorola Moto G (2nd gen) GSM phone, and
    confirmed on a Nexus 6P running Android v6.01, with May 2016 security
    patches. Qualcomm has additionally performed testing on their
    proprietary Java XTRA downloader client confirming this vulnerability.
    
    Vulnerability Details
    
    Android platform downloads XTRA data files automatically when
    connecting to a new network. This originates from a Java class
    (GpsXtraDownloader.java), which then passes the file to a C++/JNI
    class (com_android_server_location_GnssLocationProvider.cpp) and then
    injects it into the Qualcomm modem.
    
    The vulnerability is that both the Java and the C++ code do not check
    how large the data file actually is. If a file is served that is
    larger than the memory available on the device, this results in all
    memory being exhausted and the phone halting and then soft rebooting.
    The soft reboot was sufficient to recover from the crash and no data
    was lost. While we have not been able to achieve remote code execution
    in either the Qualcomm modem or in the Android OS, this code path can
    potentially be exploited for such attacks and would require more
    research.
    
    To attack, an MITM attacker located anywhere on the network between
    the phone being attacked and Qualcomm’s servers can initiate this
    attack by intercepting the legitimate requests from the phone, and
    substituting their own, larger files. Because the default Chrome
    browser on Android reveals the model and build of the phone (as we
    have written about earlier), it would be possible to derive the
    maximum memory size from that information and deliver the
    appropriately sized attack file. Possible attackers can be hostile
    hotspots, hacked routers, or anywhere along the backbone. This is
    somewhat mitigated by the fact that the attack file would need to be
    as large as the memory on the phone.
    
    The vulnerable code resides here – (GpsXtraDownloader.java, lines 120-127):
    
    connection.connect()
    int statusCode = connection.getResponseCode();
    if (statusCode != HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
    if (DEBUG) Log.d(TAG, “HTTP error downloading gps XTRA: “ + statusCode);
    return null;
    }
    return Streams.readFully(connection.getInputStream());
    
    Specifically, the affected code is using Streams.readFully to read the
    entire file into memory without any kind of checks on how big the file
    actually is.
    
    Additional vulnerable code is also in the C++ layer –
    (com_android_server_location_GnssLocationProvider.cpp, lines 856-858):
    
    jbyte* bytes = (jbyte *)env->GetPrimitiveArrayCritical(data, 0);
    sGpsXtraInterface->inject_xtra_data((char *)bytes, length);
    env->ReleasePrimitiveArrayCritical(data, bytes, JNI_ABORT);
    
    Once again, no size checking is done. We were able to consistently
    crash several different Android phones via a local WiFi network with
    the following error message:
    
    java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Failed to allocate a 478173740 byte
    allocation with 16777216 free bytes and 252MB until OOM
    at java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream.expand(ByteArrayOutputStream.java:91)
    
    (It should be noted that we were not able to consistently and reliable
    achieve a crash in the C++/JNI layer or the Qualcomm modem itself)
    
    Steps To Replicate (on Ubuntu 16.04)
    1. Install DNSMASQ:
    sudo apt-get install dnsmasq
    
    2. Install NGINX:
    sudo apt-get install nginx
    
    3. Modify the /etc/hosts file to add the following entries to map to
    the IP of the local computer (varies by vendor of the phone):
    192.168.1.x xtra1.gpsonextra.net
    192.168.1.x xtra2.gpsonextra.net
    192.168.1.x xtra3.gpsonextra.net
    192.168.1.x xtrapath1.izatcloud.net
    192.168.1.x xtrapath2.izatcloud.net
    192.168.1.x xtrapath3.izatcloud.net
    
    4. Configure /etc/dnsmasq.conf file to listed on the IP:
    listen-address=192.168.1.x
    
    5. Restart DNSMASQ:
    sudo /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart
    
    6. Use fallocate to create the bin files in “/var/www/html/”
    sudo fallocate -s 2.5G xtra.bin
    sudo fallocate -s 2.5G xtra2.bin
    sudo fallocate -s 2.5G xtra3.bin
    
    7. Modify the settings on the Android test phone to static, set DNS to
    point to “192.168.1.x”. AT THIS POINT – Android will resolve DNS
    against the local computer, and serve the GPS files from it.
    
    To trigger the GPS download, disable WiFi and enable Wifi, or
    enable/disable Airplane mode. Once the phone starts downloading the
    files, the screen will go black and it will reboot.
    
    PLEASE NOTE: on some models, the XTRA file is cached and not retrieved
    on every network connect. For those models, you may need to reboot the
    phone and/or follow the injection commands as described here. You can
    also use an app like GPS Status and ToolboxGPS Status and Toolbox.
    
    The fix would be to check for file sizes in both Java and native C++ code.
    
    Mitigation Steps
    
    For the Android platform, users should apply the October 2016 Android
    security bulletin and any patches provided by Qualcomm. Please note
    that as per Qualcomm, the patches for this bug only include fixes to
    the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and the Qualcomm Java XTRA
    downloader clients. Apple and Microsoft have indicated to us via email
    that GPS-capable devices manufactured by them including iPad, iPhones,
    etc. and Microsoft Surface and Windows Phone devices are not affected
    by this bug. Blackberry devices powered by Android are affected but
    the Blackberry 10 platform is not affected by this bug. For other
    platforms, vendors should follow guidance provided by Qualcomm
    directly via an OEM bulletin.
    
    Bounty Information
    
    This bug has fulfilled the requirements for Google’s Android Security
    Rewards and a bounty has been paid.
    
    References
    
    Android security bulletin: October 2016
    CERT/CC tracking: VR-179
    CVE-ID: CVE-2016-5348
    Google: Android bug # 213747 / AndroidID-29555864
    
    CVE Information
    
    As provided by Qualcomm:
    
    CVE: CVE-2016-5348
    Access Vector: Network
    Security Risk: High
    Vulnerability: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (‘Resource
    Exhaustion’)
    Description: When downloading a very large assistance data file, the
    client may crash due to out of memory error.
    Change summary:
    
    check download size ContentLength before downloading data
    catch OOM exception
    
    Credits
    
    We would like to thank CERT/CC for helping to coordinate this process,
    and all of the vendors involved for helpful comments and a quick
    turnaround. This bug was discovered by Yakov Shafranovich, and the
    advisory was also written by Yakov Shafranovich.
    
    Timeline
    
    201606-20: Android bug report filed with Google
    2016-06-21: Android bug confirmed
    2016-06-21: Bug also reported to Qualcomm and CERT.
    2016-09-14: Coordination with Qualcomm on public disclosure
    2016-09-15: Coordination with Google on public disclosure
    2016-10-03: Android security bulletin released with fix
    2016-10-04: Public disclosure