Authors
Ioannis Angelakopoulos, Gianluca Stringhini, Manuel Egele
Publication date
2023
Conference
32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23)
Pages
5021-5038
Description
The Linux-based firmware running on Internet of Things (IoT) devices is complex and consists of user level programs as well as kernel level code. Both components have been shown to have serious security vulnerabilities, and the risk linked to kernel vulnerabilities is particularly high, as these can lead to full system compromise. However, previous work only focuses on the user space component of embedded firmware. In this paper, we present Firmware Solution (FirmSolo), a system designed to incorporate the kernel space into firmware analysis. FirmSolo features the Kernel Configuration Reverse Engineering (KCRE) process that leverages information (ie, exported and required symbols and version magic) from the kernel modules found in firmware images to build a kernel that can load the modules within an emulated environment. This capability allows downstream analysis to broaden their scope into code executing in privileged mode.
Total citations
2023202432
Scholar articles
I Angelakopoulos, G Stringhini, M Egele - 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security …, 2023