BadAlloc’ed IOT&OT

Security researchers of Microsoft from “Section 52,” it’s an Azure Defender for IoT research group have detected nearly 25 CVE vulnerabilities that are continuously affecting a wide range of Internet-connected devices later that can be used to execute arbitrary code remotely.

Collectively known as BadAlloc Vulnerabilities are affecting IoT devices, not only this, but the vulnerabilities are also affecting industrial equipment that is specifically used in industrial, medical, and corporate networks.

After investigating all these vulnerabilities, the security analysts affirmed that these vulnerabilities are collectively known as BadAlloc bypassing security mechanism and executing malicious code

BadAlloc used vulnerable memory

BadAlloc errors happen because of several memory allocation implementations which have been built for so many years, and they are the part of IoT devices and firmware.

All the CVE vulnerabilities that have been detected were stemmed from the continuous usage of vulnerable memory functions like realloc, valloc, malloc, calloc, pvalloc, memalign.

These vulnerabilities occur due to memory allocation implementation. If this validation does not occur, then the hackers could easily exploit the vulnerable memory allocation functions to perform the planned operation.

Devices affected

• Amazon FreeRTOS, Version 10.4.1
• Apache Nuttx OS, Version 9.1.0
• ARM CMSIS-RTOS2, versions prior to 2.1.3
• ARM Mbed OS, Version 6.3.0
• ARM mbed-uallaoc, Version 1.3.0
• Cesanta Software Mongoose OS, v2.17.0
• eCosCentric eCosPro RTOS, Versions 2.0.1 through 4.5.3
• Google Cloud IoT Device SDK, Version 1.0.2
• Linux Zephyr RTOS, versions prior to 2.4.0
• MediaTek LinkIt SDK, versions prior to 4.6.1
• Micrium OS, Versions 5.10.1 and prior
• Micrium uCOS II/uCOS III Versions 1.39.0 and prior
• NXP MCUXpresso SDK, versions prior to 2.8.2
• NXP MQX, Versions 5.1 and prior
• Redhat newlib, versions prior to 4.0.0
• RIOT OS, Version 2020.01.1
• Samsung Tizen RT RTOS, versions prior 3.0.GBB
• TencentOS-tiny, Version 3.1.0
• Texas Instruments SimpleLink MSP432E4XX
• Texas Instruments SimpleLink-CC13XX, CC26XX, CC32XX versions prior to 4.40.00
• Uclibc-NG, versions prior to 1.0.36
• Windriver VxWorks, prior to 7.0

Mitigations

• Remember to apply the most recent updates.
• Always keep in mind that the affected devices are not accessible from the Internet.
• Decrease the network exposure for all the available control system devices and systems.
• Always use secure methods and techniques such as VPN