Hacking ARM Trustzone has a major security flaw

[Kadji]

So ARM Trustzone recently got breached (not explicitly for the switch, but in general).
That means that the Switch MAY be vulnerable to the same type of attack.

Since this attack is very technical and of no use for the end-user I will just link the research Paper here: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity17/sec17-tang.pdf

So what do you guys think? Will an Attack of the same type (or a slighly modified version) be possible on the switch?

Edit: For Clarification: The Attack described in the Paper was done on a Smartphone that used ARM Trustzone to hide the encryption keys. The Keys were succesfully extracted from the Trustzone.

 

[punderino]

Over a month old information, I'm sure if it was applicable someone would have said something about it.

 

[Ceuse]

Over a month old information, I'm sure if it was applicable someone would have said something about it.

After a quick read wouldt say that, but since it involves overclocking/undervolting you need to be able to run code first (which has access to energy modules) which we do not have yet. My guess is that it is provably applicable, just verry verry hard - and we do not have code execution yet afaik. (just from what i can read out of the whitepaper without any idea about hacking)

 

[BvanBart]

I believe 3.0.0 has this vulnerability. But it got patched? Or am I talking BS here?

 

[Ceuse]

I believe 3.0.0 has this vulnerability. But it got patched? Or am I talking BS here?

I dont think you could patch the vulnerability at all since its depended on chip design (i.e using the same energy regulators for both trustzone and non trust zone parts of the chip)

 

[DarkOrb]

After a quick read wouldt say that, but since it involves overclocking/undervolting you need to be able to run code first (which has access to energy modules) which we do not have yet. My guess is that it is provably applicable, just verry verry hard - and we do not have code execution yet afaik. (just from what i can read out of the whitepaper without any idea about hacking)

Devs are already able to underclock the system via hardware modifications. In fact, an electrical engineer named "hedgeberg" did this on his twitch stream to find out how the boot process of the Switch works.

@B4rtj4h

You are talking about smhax which is a way to get special rights on your system.

 

[Ceuse]

Just read a dumbed down news article of the vulnerability. It said there that you need root rights to do it.

Basicly this could be a 3rd part of a attack.
First use smhax to get code running that abuses a not found/public vulnerability to get elevated rights. Use the attack on the trustzone from there to get your personal keys out of the trustzone. If that is done its basicly.over since you can use those keys to sign code/firmwares yourself right? Anyone with expertise in actually hacking expertise can tell me if im completly off or that this could be a way to fully exploit the switch (as said i have no clue myself just trying to understand the path/possibilities such a exploit could take)

 

[Supercool330]

This may be useful for getting things like the public key out of trustzone, but is unlikely to be generally useful. It also requires kernel access to even begin the attack.

 

[chrisrlink]

let me throw out a hypothesis say a dev exploits this and gains the trust zone keys (I assume that's the goal of doing it) basicly ALL switches (even future revisions) will have their security cracked and have open access (CFW,Hombrew Piracy) on any firmware nintendo throws at the switch?

 

[FAST6191]

Was news to me so thanks for that. The paper tried to sell itself a bit more than I care for but I can live with that, did a nice job of not bamboozling people as well.

Energy management systems turned into an onboard, and software operable, side channel attack... except side channel is probably the wrong word in this case (it sees the same voltage and clock fiddling, time based analysis of encryption and a cousin of timing based pull low/pull high from them though). Cool stuff.

Alas I don't know enough of the switch hardware to speculate on its usefulness there but if it is a slightly retooled android tablet I would be surprised if it was not useful at some level.

 

[V-Temp]

let me throw out a hypothesis say a dev exploits this and gains the trust zone keys (I assume that's the goal of doing it) basicly ALL switches (even futu Koore revisions) will have their security cracked and have open access (CFW,Hombrew Piracy) on any firmware nintendo throws at the switch?

Nah.

After a quick read wouldt say that, but since it involves overclocking/undervolting you need to be able to run code first (which has access to energy modules) which we do not have yet. My guess is that it is provably applicable, just verry verry hard - and we do not have code execution yet afaik. (just from what i can read out of the whitepaper without any idea about hacking)

We've been able to play with clocks for a long time.

 

[Catsinabucket]

Wasn't this TrustZone vulnerability brought up a few month ago on these forums?

 

[Ceuse]

Nah.



We've been able to play with clocks for a long time.

So assuming you could exploit this and get all of the trustzone keys from this exploiut. What could be doable with them.signing code/cfw?

 

[jimmyj]

So assuming you could exploit this and get all of the trustzone keys from this exploiut. What could be doable with them.signing code/cfw?

To actually make those unsigned codes signed so they will work on any system

 

[OblivionReign]

After a quick read wouldt say that, but since it involves overclocking/undervolting you need to be able to run code first (which has access to energy modules) which we do not have yet. My guess is that it is provably applicable, just verry verry hard - and we do not have code execution yet afaik. (just from what i can read out of the whitepaper without any idea about hacking)

We do have userland artitrary code execution on thr Nintendo Switch and it was all made public last night. As for if this will be applicable. The teams already got all the trustzone code exploited