Hacking

BroadPwn potentially expose to hack millions of Android devices using Broadcom Wi-Fi Chip

Google warned of a serious flaw dubbed BroadPwn in some Broadcom Wi-Fi chipsets that potentially impacts millions of Android devices.

Google published the monthly security update for Android devices, it warned of a serious flaw, dubbed BroadPWN, in some Broadcom Wi-Fi chipsets that potentially impacts millions of Android devices, as well as some iPhone models.

BroadPwn is a critical remote code execution vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-3544, that affects the Broadcom BCM43xx family of WiFi chipsets. Remote attackers can trigger the flaw without user interaction to execute malicious code on vulnerable devices with kernel privileges.

“The most severe vulnerability in this section could enable a remote attacker using a specially crafted file to execute arbitrary code within the context of an unprivileged process.,” reads the Google July 2017 Android Security Bulletin.

The BroadPwn issue was reported by the Exodus Intelligence expert Nitay Artenstein, he will present the analysis at the Next Black Hat 2017 conference.

 “Meet Broadpwn, a vulnerability in Broadcom’s Wi-Fi chipsets which affects millions of Android and iOS devices, and can be triggered remotely, without user interaction. The Broadcom BCM43xx family of Wi-Fi chips is found in an extraordinarily wide range of mobile devices – from various iPhone models, to HTC, LG, Nexus and practically the full range of Samsung flagship devices.

“In this talk, we’ll take a deep dive into the internals of the BCM4354, 4358 and 4359 Wi-Fi chipsets, and explore the workings of the mysterious, closed-source HNDRTE operating system. Then, we’ll plunge into the confusing universe of 802.11 standards in a quest to find promising attack surfaces.” states the abstract of the talk.

Google also patched 10 critical RCEs and more than 100 high and moderate issues. The company also fixed several critical flaws affecting the Android Mediaserver process, some of them could be exploited by a remote attacker to perform code execution.An input validation flaw in the libhevc library, tracked as CVE-2017-0540, can be exploited by using a specifically crafted file.

“A remote code execution vulnerability in libhevc in Mediaserver could enable an attacker using a specially crafted file to cause memory corruption during media file and data processing. This issue is rated as Critical due to the possibility of remote code execution within the context of the Mediaserver process. Product: Android. Versions: 5.0.2, 5.1.1, 6.0, 6.0.1, 7.0, 7.1.1. Android ID: A-33966031.” reads the vulnerability description.

As usual, Google already issued security updates for Pixel and Nexus devices, but remaining Android devices will remain vulnerable until OEMs will fix the issues too.

[adrotate banner=”9″]

Pierluigi Paganini 

(Security Affairs – BroadPWN, hacking)

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

MITRE revealed that nation-state actors breached its systems via Ivanti zero-days

The MITRE Corporation revealed that a nation-state actor compromised its systems in January 2024 by…

2 hours ago

FBI chief says China is preparing to attack US critical infrastructure

China-linked threat actors are preparing cyber attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure warned FBI Director Christopher…

14 hours ago

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) investigates data breach

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has initiated an investigation into an alleged ransomware attack…

17 hours ago

FIN7 targeted a large U.S. carmaker with phishing attacks

BlackBerry reported that the financially motivated group FIN7 targeted the IT department of a large…

1 day ago

Law enforcement operation dismantled phishing-as-a-service platform LabHost

An international law enforcement operation led to the disruption of the prominent phishing-as-a-service platform LabHost.…

1 day ago

Previously unknown Kapeka backdoor linked to Russian Sandworm APT

Russia-linked APT Sandworm employed a previously undocumented backdoor called Kapeka in attacks against Eastern Europe since…

2 days ago

This website uses cookies.