Firmware

Embedded Linux Architecture

• ARM

• MIPS

• Custom ones

Firmware in Embedded Linux

combination of all code running on the device, with many packages:

• Bootloader

  • initializations

  • HW description

  • It boots up the kernel image

  • It passes control to the kernel with pointers to:

    • info about HW

    • kernel command line

• Kernel

• File System

• Other resources

Main pentesting activities

• Find secrets

  • backdoor

  • passwords

  • API keys

  • private certificates

• Vulnerabilities in binaries

• Binaries and Firmware emulation

• Creation of a malicious firmware image

• Reverse engineering of the binaries

Firmware retrieval

From:

• Web

• Dump of the device's flash chip

• Sniffing of the OTA update

• Reverse engineering of mobile application and similar software

Firmware vulnerability analysis

• Extract the firmware and look for specific component related security issues

• Configuration files and hardcoded secrets

• Use qemu to emulate firmware binaries and firmware

• Attach it to a debugger and analyse

• Reverse patches and diff two different versions of a firmware

• Analyse firmware binaries (.bin, .img, .pkg, .zip)

• Run strings and hexdump on them

Extract File System

Manual method

• Identify the firmware type

  file <firmware_file>

  
• Identify the offset of the file system by grepping the HEX and ASCII stringified firmware by the FS magic number (i.e. hsqs for most common file system SquashFS)

  hexdump -C <firmware_file> | grep -i 'hsqs'

  
• Dump the file system from the firmware

  dd if=<firmware_file> bs=1 skip=$((0x<offset>)) of=<output_fs>

  -if=<firmware_file>: input file -of=<output_fs>: output file -if: buffer size (1 = 1MB) -skip=$((0x<offset>)): starts from offset 0x<offset>

  
• Extract FS files from the FS (e.g. SquashFS)

  sudo apt install squashfs-tools
  unsquashfs <input_fs>

  
• Navigate the File system

  cd squashfs-root

Automated method

Extraction with multiple FS support using binwalk

• Show different sections

  binwalk <firmware_file>

• Extract the various sections

  binwalk -e <firmware_file>

• Show Entropy (to understand if the firmware is encrypted or not)

  binwalk -E <firmware_file>

• Hex diff betwween two files

  binwalk -W <file1> <file2>

• Recursively extract files from deeply embedded archives

  binwalk -Me firmware.bin

Extract protected archive of the firmware with password

fcrackzip -u -b -v <zip_file.zip> 

• -u: unzip

• -b: brute-force

• -v: verbose

Encrypted Firmware

Constant entropy for every offset

XOR

• Look for the end of the where there are many NULL bytes

hexdump -C <firmware_file> | tail -n 100

• Look for the identified sequence in the firmware file (e.g. aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa)

hexdump -C <firmware_file> | grep -i "aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa"

• Decrypt the binary using the previous pattern as keys

hexdump -C <firmware_file> | python3 decrypt_firmware.py "aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa" > decrypted_firmware.bin

decrypt_firmware.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys

# Convert hex string to bytes
key = bytes.fromhex(sys.argv[1])

# Read input as bytes
data = sys.stdin.buffer.read()

# XOR decryption
result = bytearray()
key_len = len(key)

for i, b in enumerate(data):
    result.append(b ^ key[i % key_len])

# Write raw binary to stdout
sys.stdout.buffer.write(result)

• Run binwalk on decrypted_firmware.bin

Binary emulation

• Install qemu

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install qemu-user

• Identify the Linux architecture (e.g. ARM, MISP and Endianess)

  file <binary_to_be_run>

• Move to the root folder of the firmware FS

• Copy the qemu-<arch> binary to the current folder to avoid issues when you will change the root folder in the next step

• Run the emulator on the binary (e.g. mips) and change the root folder to the current folder for the emulation (to be sure that dynamic links or references to other programs are working)

  • Big Endian

    sudo chroot . qemu-mips <binary_to_be_run>

  • Little Endian

    sudo chroot . qemu-mipsel <binary_to_be_run>

  • Debug option (-g)

    sudo chroot . qemu-mipsel -g <gdb_port> <binary_to_be_run>

Attach debugger

• Launch the program with qemu and -g <gdb_port> (qemu will be pending for the connection of the debugger)

gdg-multiarch <binary_file>

After launching it:

• set architecture type

set architecture mips

• set a breakpoint

• connect to the remote qemu execution

target remote localhost:<gdb_port>

• continue

c

Category	GDB Command	Description
Start/Run	gdb ./program	Start GDB with executable
Start/Run	run [args] or r [args]	Run program with optional arguments
Start/Run	start	Run until main() and stop
Start/Run	kill	Stop running program
Start/Run	quit	Exit GDB
Breakpoints	break main or b main	Break at main()
Breakpoints	break file.c:42 or b file.c:42	Break at line 42 of file.c
Breakpoints	break function_name	Break at start of function
Breakpoints	break *0x8048400	Break at specific memory address
Breakpoints	delete [n]	Delete breakpoint number n
Breakpoints	info breakpoints or i b	List all breakpoints
Breakpoints	disable [n] / enable [n]	Temporarily disable/enable breakpoint n
Execution	continue or c	Resume execution until next breakpoint
Execution	next or n	Step over to next line (don’t enter functions)
Execution	step or s	Step into function calls
Execution	finish	Run until current function returns
Execution	until [line]	Run until a specific line
Execution	return [value]	Force current function to return value
Inspect	print var or p var	Print variable value
Inspect	display var	Automatically display variable each step
Inspect	info locals	Show all local variables in current function
Inspect	info args	Show function arguments
Inspect	x/[format] address	Examine memory at address, e.g., x/16xb buf
Inspect	x/[format] $<register_name>	Examine content of register <register_name>
Inspect	info registers or i r	Show CPU registers
Inspect	bt or backtrace	Show call stack
Inspect	frame [n]	Switch to stack frame n
Inspect	up / down	Move up/down the call stack
Watchpoints	watch var	Stop when var changes
Watchpoints	rwatch var	Stop when var is read
Watchpoints	awatch var	Stop when var is read or written
Watchpoints	info watchpoints	List all watchpoints
Watchpoints	delete watch n	Delete watchpoint n
Assembly	set disassembly-flavor intel	Use Intel syntax
Assembly	disassemble [function]	Show assembly for function
Assembly	layout src	TUI mode showing source code
Assembly	layout asm	TUI mode showing assembly
Assembly	layout regs	TUI mode showing registers
Misc	info threads	List all threads
Misc	thread n	Switch to thread n
Misc	set args arg1 arg2	Set program arguments without restarting
Misc	set $<register_name>="VALUE"	Set the value of the register <register_name>
Misc	help	Show GDB help
Misc	help command	Show help for a specific command

Monitor system calls

sudo strace chroot . ./qemu-mips-static <binary_file>

Firmware emulation with FAT

• Firmadyne

• Firmware Analysis Toolkit

Backdooring a firmware

Use Firmware-mod-kit to repack the firmware with changes:

Extract the firmware

• Move to firmware-mod-kit folder

• Extract the Firmware

sudo extract-firmware.sh <firmware_bin>

• Access to the results folder <firmware_name>:

cd <firmware_name>

<firmware_name>/
├── image_parts/
│   ├── header.img
│   └── rootfs.img
├── logs/
└── rootfs/

Compile the C backdoor

• Compile the program with a multi-platform compiler Buildroot and move to the folder

make menuconfig

• Set all the parameters you want (e.g. architectures, external libraries and so on)

• Identify the correct compiler in output/host/usr/bin:

cd output/host/usr/bin
ls -al

• Compile the program

sudo ./mipssel-builroot-linuxòuclibc-gcc <program>.c -static -o <program>

Re-pack the firmware

• Move back to firmware-mod-kit folder

• Compile the firmware

sudo ./build-firmware.sh -nopad -min

• Move to the previously created <firmware_name> folder where you will find the repacked firmware new-firmware.bin

<firmware_name>/
├── image_parts/
│   ├── header.img
│   └── rootfs.img
├── logs/
├── new-filesystem.squashfs
├── new-firmware.bin
└── rootfs/

Identify vulnerabilities by diffing File systems files

On two different firmware releases, run:

sudo kdiff3

This will highligth the changes in file systems and specific files (to retrieve bug or security issues fixes).