I am proud to share that I was elected the Vice Chair of the RISC-V J-extension (so-called J-ext) Task Group 🙂 My last 3-4 years of work on the RISC-V architecture were quite fruitful:
- I am an author of RISC-V Pointer Masking extension:
https://github.com/riscv/riscv-j-extension/blob/master/zjpm-spec.pdf - I am one of the Contributors to RISC-V Control Flow Integrity (CFI):
https://github.com/riscv/riscv-cfi/blob/main/riscv-cfi.pdf - I help driving I/D consistency extension
- HWASAN and Memory Tagging (MTE) on RISC-V
- I found a critical bug in the RISC-V architecture (not in the implementation of a specific processor) that got CVE-2021-1104. Among other things, I talked about this vulnerability in 2021 at the DefCon 29 conference
Thanks,
Adam
16
Jun
Blind TCP/IP hijacking is still alive! After 13 years, Windows 7/XP/2K/9x (and not only) full blind TCP/IP hijacking bug finally got an allocated CVE-2023-34367 (thanks to MITRE). Interestingly, The Pwnie Awards nomination for this research and the published write-up + PoC didn’t help to get it sooner 😉
Read more17
May
At first, I didn’t plan to write an article about the problems with bug bounty programs. This was supposed to be a standard technical blogpost describing an interesting bug in the Linux Kernel i915 driver allowing for a linear Out-Of-Bound read and write access (CVE-2023-28410). Moreover, I’m not even into bug bounty programs, mostly because I don’t need to, since I consider myself lucky enough to have a satisfying, stable and well-paid job. That being said, in my spare time, apart from developing and maintaining the Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG) project, I still like doing vulnerability research and exploit development not only for my employer, and from time to time it’s good to update your resume with new CVE numbers. Before I started to have a stable income, bug bounties didn’t exist and most of the quality vulnerability research outcome was paying the bills via brokers (let’s leave aside the moral questions arising from this). However, nowadays we have bug bounty programs…
Read moreThis year I’m going to present some amazing research on:
- BlackHat 2021 – “Safeguarding UEFI Ecosystem: Firmware Supply Chain is Hard(coded)” – together with Alex Tereshkin and Alex Matrosov
Abstract: click here - DefCon 29 – “Glitching RISC-V chips: MTVEC corruption for hardening ISA” – together with Alex Matrosov
Abstract: click here
Both of them are really unusual and interesting topics 😉
If anyone is going to be in Las Vegas during BlackHat and/or DefCon this year and would like to grab a beer, just let me know!
Thanks,
Adam
During LKRG development and testing I’ve found 7 Linux kernel bugs, 4 of them have CVE numbers (however, 1 CVE number covers 2 bugs):
Read more24
Jan
Blind TCP/IP hijacking is still alive on Windows 7… and not only. This version of Windows is certainly one of the “juiciest” targets even though January 14th 2020 was the official EOL (End Of Life) for it. Based on various data Windows 7 holds around 25% share of the Operating Systems (OS) market and is still the world’s second most popular desktop operating system.
Read moreThe short story of broken KRETPROBES and OPTIMIZER in Linux Kernel.
During the LKRG development process I’ve found that:
- KRETPROBES are broken since kernel 5.8 (fixed in upcoming kernel)
- OPTIMIZER was not doing sufficient job since kernel 5.5
Introduction
During the last Patch Tuesday (13th of October 2020), Microsoft fixed a very interesting (and sexy) vulnerability: CVE-2020-16898 – Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (link). Microsoft’s description of the vulnerability:
“A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows TCP/IP stack improperly handles ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the ability to execute code on the target server or client.
To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to send specially crafted ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets to a remote Windows computer.
The update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how the Windows TCP/IP stack handles ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets.”
This vulnerability is so important that I’ve decided to write a Proof-of-Concept for it. During my work there weren’t any public exploits for it. I’ve spent a significant amount of time analyzing all the necessary caveats needed for triggering the bug. Even now, available information doesn’t provide sufficient details for triggering the bug. That’s why I’ve decided to summarize my experience. First, short summary:
- This bug can ONLY be exploited when source address is link-local IPv6. This requirement is limiting the potential targets!
- The entire payload must be a valid IPv6 packet. If you screw-up headers too much, your packet will be rejected before triggering the bug
- During the process of validating the size of the packet, all defined “length” in Optional headers must match the packet size
- This vulnerability allows to smuggle an extra “header”. This header is not validated and includes “Length” field. After triggering the bug, this field will be inspected against the packet size anyway.
- Windows NDIS API, which can trigger the bug, has a very annoying optimization (from the exploitation perspective). To be able to bypass it, you need to use fragmentation! Otherwise, you can trigger the bug, but it won’t result in memory corruption!
11
Sep
The short story of 1 Linux Kernel Use-After-Free bug and 2 CVEs (CVE-2020-14356 and CVE-2020-25220)
Name: Linux kernel Cgroup BPF Use-After-Free
Author: Adam Zabrocki (pi3@pi3.com.pl)
Date: May 27, 2020
25
Jun
Hi,
We’ve just announced a new version of LKRG 0.8! It includes enormous amount of changes – in fact, so much that we’re not trying to document all of the changes this time (although they can be seen from the git commits), but rather focus on high-level aspects. I encourage to read full announcement here:
https://www.openwall.com/lists/announce/2020/06/25/1
Btw. Among others, we have added support for Raspberry Pi 3 & 4, better scalability, performance, and tradeoffs, the notion of profiles, new documentation, @Phoronix benchmarks, and more
Best regards,
Adam