Notes from CanSecWest:
Barnaby Jack, a Juniper Networks security researcher, gave a tutorial at the CanSecWest conference here on how bug hunters can find exploitable vulnerabilities in such devices and demonstrated an attack on a D-Link router using a yet-to-be-patched hole.
“Security flaws are abundant on these devices,” Jack said. “Security needs to reach further than a home PC. Insecure devices pose a threat to the entire network. Hardware vendors must take security into consideration.”
There hasn’t yet been a large amount of security research into the type of software Jack looks at. This is code that runs gadgets equipped with ARM, MIPS, XScale and PowerPC microprocessors. However, researchers appear increasingly interested in finding ways to attack routers and other such “embedded” devices.
In examining software from various devices, Jack found that there are many exploitable “null pointers” in the code. “Vulnerabilities that are near dead in the PC realm are abundant,” he said. “This is a new class of attack…This is a remote attack the same way as a buffer overflow or a heap overflow, but it is more reliable.”
Ah, if I only had the budget to attend more conferences. At least Black Hat/Defcon are on the horizon. I’m thinking about submitting a paper for next years Defcon. I don’t think that I will make it in time for the deadline this year.
[tags]Embedded Security, CanSecWest, Defcon, Home Security, DLink Router, Barnaby Jack, Juniper[/tags]