In this talk, we will share our research in which we successfully exploit Qualcomm WLAN in FIRMWARE layer, break down the isolation between WLAN and Modem, and then fully control the Modem over the air.
Setting up the real-time debugger is the key. Without the debugger, it's difficult to inspect the program flow and runtime status. On the Qualcomm platform, subsystems are protected by the Secure Boot and unable to be touched externally. We'll introduce the vulnerability we found in Modem to defeat the Secure Boot and elevate privilege into Modem locally so that we can setup the live debugger for baseband.
The Modem and WLAN firmware is quite complex and reverse engineering is a tough work. Thanks to the debugger, we finally figured out the system architecture, the components, the program flow, the data flow, and the attack surfaces of WLAN firmware. We'll share these techniques in detail, along with the zero-days we found on the attack surfaces.
There are multiple mitigations on Qualcomm baseband, including DEP, stack protection, heap cookie, system call constraint, etc. All the details of the exploitation and mitigation bypassing techniques will be given during the presentation.
Starting from Snapdragon 835, WLAN firmware is integrated into the Modem subsystem as an isolated user space application constraint. We'll discuss these constraints, and then leverage the weakness we found to fully exploit Modem.
Xiling Gong is a senior security researcher of Tencent Blade Team. He's an Android vulnerability hunter and has discovered many Android vulnerabilities. He is the speaker of CanSecWest 2018. Now he is focusing on Qualcomm firmware security, including Baseband, WLAN, Video/Audio Hardware Decoder.
Peter Pi is a Senior Security Researcher of Tencent Blade Team. He has discovered many vulnerabilities of vendors like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm, Adobe and Tesla. He was the #1 researcher of Google Android VRP in year 2016. He has spoken at many famous security conferences such as BlackHat, ConSecWest, HITB GSEC and Hitcon.