Six years ago, NCC Group researchers Tim Newsham and Jesse Hertz released TriforceAFL - an extension of the American Fuzzy Lop (AFL) fuzzer which supports full-system fuzzing using QEMU - but unfortunately the associated whitepaper for this work was never published. Today, we’re releasing it for the curious reader and historical archives alike. While fuzzing … Continue reading Whitepaper – Project Triforce: Run AFL On Everything (2017)
Category: Whitepaper
SETTLERS OF NETLINK: Exploiting a limited UAF in nf_tables (CVE-2022-32250)
Introduction netlink and nf_tables Overview Sets Expressions Set Expressions Stateful Expressions Expressions of Interest nft_lookup nft_dynset nft_connlimit Vulnerability Discovery CVE-2022-32250 Analysis Set Creation Set Deactivation Initial Limited UAF Write Exploitation Building an Initial Plan Offsets We Can Write at Into the UAF Chunk Hunting for Replacement Objects What Pointer Do We Want to Arbitrary Free? … Continue reading SETTLERS OF NETLINK: Exploiting a limited UAF in nf_tables (CVE-2022-32250)
Whitepaper – Practical Attacks on Machine Learning Systems
This paper collects a set of notes and research projects conducted by NCC Group on the topic of the security of Machine Learning (ML) systems. The objective is to provide some industry perspective to the academic community, while collating helpful references for security practitioners, to enable more effective security auditing and security-focused code review of ML systems. Details of specific practical attacks and common security problems are described. Some general background information on the broader subject of ML is also included, mostly for context, to ensure that explanations of attack scenarios are clear, and some notes on frameworks and development processes are provided.
Whitepaper – Double Fetch Vulnerabilities in C and C++
Double fetch vulnerabilities in C and C++ have been known about for a number of years. However, they can appear in multiple forms and can have varying outcomes. As much of this information is spread across various sources, this whitepaper draws the knowledge together into a single place, in order to better describe the different … Continue reading Whitepaper – Double Fetch Vulnerabilities in C and C++
Research Paper – Machine Learning for Static Malware Analysis, with University College London
For the past few years, NCC Group has been an industry partner to the Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science (CDT in DIS) at University College London (UCL). CDT is composed of a group of over 80 academics from across UCL in areas such as High Energy Physics, Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, … Continue reading Research Paper – Machine Learning for Static Malware Analysis, with University College London
Whitepaper – Exploring the Security of KaiOS Mobile Applications
KaiOS is a mobile operating system, forked from the discontinued Firefox OS, in which all the mobile applications running on a KaiOS-based mobile device are built using web technologies, such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. In this independent research project, we demonstrate that six of the pre-installed mobile applications are vulnerable to remote, and local, … Continue reading Whitepaper – Exploring the Security of KaiOS Mobile Applications
Cyber Security of New Space Paper
NCC Group's Transport Security Practice has co-authored with the Surrey Center for Cyber Security and the Surrey Space Center a new paper titled 'Cyber security in New Space'. It provides analysis of the threats, challenges and key technologies related to the satellite industry.
Research Report – Zephyr and MCUboot Security Assessment
Over the years, NCC Group has audited countless embedded devices for our customers. Through these security assessments, we have observed that IoT devices are typically built using a hodgepodge of chipset vendor board support packages (BSP), bootloaders, SDKs, and an established Real Time Operating System (RTOS) such as Mbed or FreeRTOS. However, we have recently … Continue reading Research Report – Zephyr and MCUboot Security Assessment
Whitepaper – Coinbugs: Enumerating Common Blockchain Implementation-Level Vulnerabilities
By Aleksandar Kircanski and Terence Tarvis A good amount of effort has been dedicated to surveying and systematizing Ethereum smart contract security bug classes. There is, however, a gap in literature when it comes to surveying implementation-level security bugs that commonly occur in basic PoW blockchain node implementations, discovered during the first decade of Bitcoin’s … Continue reading Whitepaper – Coinbugs: Enumerating Common Blockchain Implementation-Level Vulnerabilities
Whitepaper – Microcontroller Readback Protection: Bypasses and Defenses
By Sultan Qasim Khan Microcontrollers commonly include features to prevent the readout of sensitive information in internal storage. Such features are commonly referred to as readback protection or readout protection. This paper describes common readback protection implementation flaws, discusses techniques that can be used to defeat readback protection, and provides guidance to implement effective readback … Continue reading Whitepaper – Microcontroller Readback Protection: Bypasses and Defenses