WhatsApp exposure of TLS 1.2 cryptographic material to third party apps
| CENSUS ID: | CENSUS-2021-0002 |
| CVE ID: | CVE-2021-24027 |
| Affected Products: | WhatsApp Messenger for Android, versions prior to 2.21.4.18 |
| Class: | Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere (CWE-497) |
| Discovered by: | Chariton Karamitas |
CENSUS identified that versions prior to 2.21.4.18 of WhatsApp for Android allowed third party apps to access WhatsApp TLS 1.2 cryptographic material, as this was stored in "app-specific external storage". On Android 9 and previous versions of Android, the material is exposed to any third party app that bears the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE or WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. On Android 10 a malicious app would also require the requestLegacyExternalStorage attribute to access the files. Through the installation of a malicious app, or alternatively, through the exploitation of a vulnerable app (or Android component) that resides on a WhatsApp user's mobile device, remote actors were able to control the victim user's TLS session cryptographic secrets and could thus perform Man-in-The-Middle attacks to WhatsApp communications. Research has shown that exploitation of this vulnerability can lead to remote code execution on the victim device. CENSUS strongly recommends updating WhatsApp to version 2.21.4.18 or greater. This is a serious vulnerability which could be abused for surveillance purposes.
Microchip ASF4 integer overflows in flash_read, flash_write and flash_append
| CENSUS ID: | CENSUS-2020-0005 |
| CVE ID: | CVE-2019-16127 |
| Affected Products: | ASF4 as distributed through start.atmel.com (last accessed 2020-10-21) |
| Class: | Integer Overflow or Wraparound (CWE-190) |
| Discovered by: | George Poulios |
CENSUS identified several integer overflow problems in the flash_read, flash_write and flash_append functions of the Microchip ASF4 framework. This framework is used during firmware development for Atmel (now Microchip) microcontrollers. An adversary may abuse these issues to gain unauthorized read or write access to arbitrary pages of the flash storage, especially pages mapped at low memory addresses. As no patch is available from the vendor, CENSUS urges developers to implement a check for integer overflows in the relevant code.
Microchip cryptoauthlib atcab_genkey_base buffer overflow
| CENSUS ID: | CENSUS-2020-0004 |
| CVE ID: | CVE-2019-16129 |
| Affected Products: | cryptoauthlib versions prior to "20191122" |
| Class: | Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')(CWE-120) |
| Discovered by: | George Poulios |
CENSUS identified a buffer overflow vulnerability in the atcab_genkey_base function of the cryptoauthlib library. This library is part of the standard SDK provided by Microchip and is used to drive the operation of cryptographic co-processors sold by the vendor, such as the ATECC608A. An attacker with physical access to an embedded device where a microcontroller unit executes a vulnerable version of this library, may be able to execute arbitrary code on the microcontroller, by supplying malicious input to the microcontroller. Affected manufacturers of embedded systems that use Microchip cryptographic co-processors, are strongly recommended to update to at least version "20191122" of the "cryptoauthlib" library.
Microchip cryptoauthlib atcab_sign_base buffer overflow
| CENSUS ID: | CENSUS-2020-0003 |
| CVE ID: | CVE-2019-16128 |
| Affected Products: | cryptoauthlib versions prior to "20191122" |
| Class: | Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')(CWE-120) |
| Discovered by: | George Poulios |
CENSUS identified a buffer overflow vulnerability in the atcab_sign_base function of the cryptoauthlib library. This library is part of the standard SDK provided by Microchip and is used to drive the operation of cryptographic co-processors sold by the vendor, such as the ATECC608A. An attacker with physical access to an embedded device where a microcontroller unit executes a vulnerable version of this library, may be able to execute arbitrary code on the microcontroller, by supplying malicious input to the microcontroller. Affected manufacturers of embedded systems that use Microchip cryptographic co-processors, are strongly recommended to update to at least version "20191122" of the "cryptoauthlib" library.