5G Security & Smart Environments

5G security – how to minimise the threats to a 5G network

To ensure security of new 5G telecom networks, NCC Group has been providing guidance, conducting code reviews, red team engagements and pentesting 5G standalone and non-standalone networks since 2019. As with any network various attackers are motivated by different reasons. An attacker could be motivated to either gain information about…


Technical Advisory – Multiple vulnerabilities in Nuki smart locks (CVE-2022-32509, CVE-2022-32504, CVE-2022-32502, CVE-2022-32507, CVE-2022-32503, CVE-2022-32510, CVE-2022-32506, CVE-2022-32508, CVE-2022-32505)

The following vulnerabilities were found as part of a research project looking at the state of security of the different Nuki (smart lock) products. The main goal was to look for vulnerabilities which could affect to the availability, integrity or confidentiality of the different devices, from hardware to software. Eleven…


Technical Advisory – Kwikset/Weiser BLE Proximity Authentication in Kevo Smart Locks Vulnerable to Relay Attacks

Summary The Kwikset/Weiser Kevo line of smart locks support Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) passive entry through their Touch-to-Open functionality. When a user touches the exterior portion of the lock, the lock checks that an authorized BLE device is exterior to and within a short distance of the smart lock, and…


Why IoT Security Matters

Introduction Internet of Things security can mean any number of things for your product and its users. This will depend largely on the context of the product and its deployment, and can include specific requirements, such as integrity, confidentiality, availability, safety, privacy, consent, authenticity, and more. Understanding how security fits…


Exploit the Fuzz – Exploiting Vulnerabilities in 5G Core Networks

Following on from our previous blog post ‘The Challenges of Fuzzing 5G Protocols’, in this post, we demonstrate how an attacker could use the results from the fuzz testing to produce an exploit and potentially gain access to a 5G core network. In this blog post we will be using…


NCC Group placed first in global 5G Cyber Security Hack competition

In June of this year, Traficom – the Finnish transport and communications agency – along with the Aalto University, Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, and PwC, organized the 5G Cyber Security Hack competition. A similar event was organised in November 2019 in Oulu, Finland and this hackathon-style event was a follow-up to…


The Challenges of Fuzzing 5G Protocols

If you have ever looked at fuzzing in any depth you will quickly realize it’s not as trivial as it first appears. There are many different types of fuzzers, but here we are focused on network fuzzers.  These fuzzers are of particular interest as they are most suited to fuzzing…


Technical Advisory – Open5GS Stack Buffer Overflow During PFCP Session Establishment on UPF (CVE-2021-41794)

Summary When connecting to the UPF port for the PFCP protocol (8805) and sending an Association Setup Request followed by a Session Establishment Request with a PDI Network Instance set to ‘internet’, it causes a stack corruption to occur. Impact Exploitation of this vulnerability would lead to denial of service…


Domestic IoT Nightmares: Smart Doorbells

Preface Half way through 2020, UK independent consumer champion Which? magazine reached out to us and asked if we could assist investigating the security of a series of domestic IoT devices and to perform a vulnerability assessment of each device. The assessments included smart plugs and smart/connected doorbells. We also…


Compromising a Hospital Network for £118 (Plus Postage & Packaging)

TL; DR We bought a medical infusion pump device from eBay and from it, forensically retrieved the WPA key and server authentication credentials for a real-world hospital’s wireless network and medical pump management server. In the wrong hands, such capability could be life-threatening given the level of network-based access this…