Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component in ESP-IDF

1) Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component

EUVDB-ID: #VU30732

Risk: Medium

CVSSv3.1: 5.9 [CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2019-15894

CWE-ID: CWE-74 - Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local non-authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code.

An issue was discovered in Espressif ESP-IDF 2.x, 3.0.x through 3.0.9, 3.1.x through 3.1.6, 3.2.x through 3.2.3, and 3.3.x through 3.3.1. An attacker who uses fault injection to physically disrupt the ESP32 CPU can bypass the Secure Boot digest verification at startup, and boot unverified code from flash. The fault injection attack does not disable the Flash Encryption feature, so if the ESP32 is configured with the recommended combination of Secure Boot and Flash Encryption, then the impact is minimized. If the ESP32 is configured without Flash Encryption then successful fault injection allows arbitrary code execution. To protect devices with Flash Encryption and Secure Boot enabled against this attack, a firmware change must be made to permanently enable Flash Encryption in the field if it is not already permanently enabled.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

ESP-IDF: 3.3

External links

http://www.espressif.com/en/news/Espressif_Security_Advisory_Concerning_Fault_Injection_and_Secure_Boot

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. The attacker should have physical access to the system in order to successfully exploit this vulnerability.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.