Source Link Privacy.
Tarlogic Security has detected a backdoor in the ESP32, a microcontroller that enables WiFi and Bluetooth connection and is present in millions of mass-market IoT devices. Exploitation of this backdoor would allow hostile actors to conduct impersonation attacks and permanently infect sensitive devices such as mobile phones, computers, smart locks or medical equipment by bypassing code audit controls.
Update: The ESP32 “backdoor” that wasn’t.
Well… Shit.
There are so, so, so, many ESP32’s in not just my house, but practically everyone I know.
There outta be fines for this BS.
You’re fine. This isn’t something that can be exploited over wifi. You literally need physical access to the device to exploit it as it’s commands over USB that allow flashing the chip.
This is a security firm making everything sound scary because they want you to buy their testing device.
You literally need physical access to the device to exploit it
You don’t need physical access. Read the article. The researcher used physical USB to discover that the Bluetooth firmware has backdoors. It doesn’t require physical access to exploit.
It’s Bluetooth that’s vulnerable.
I just re-read the article and yes, you still need physical access.
The exploit is one that bypasses OS protections to writing to the firmware. In otherwords, you need to get the device to run a malicious piece of code or exploit a vulnerability in already running code that also interacts with the bluetooth stack.
The exploit, explicitly, is not one that can be carried out with a drive-by Bluetooth connection. You also need faulty software running on the device.
“Depending on how Bluetooth stacks handle HCI commands on the device, remote exploitation of the backdoor might be possible via malicious firmware or rogue Bluetooth connections.”
I of course don’t know details but I’m basing my post on that sentence. “Backdoor may be possible via … rogue Bluetooth connections.”
Looking at the article, the exploit requires you to be able to send arbitrary data to the Bluetooth device over a physical connection. This means that a properly secure application will be protected from drive by connections, but if the application has an exploit that either lets an attacker write arbitrary values to the Bluetooth controller, or more likely contains a general arbitrary code execution exploit, then you could use this to rewrite values to the chip that would let you “persist” certain changes to the Bluetooth chip that would be difficult to notice.
I would consider this a moderate concern, as this will definitely increase your options if you’re looking to be able to make an attack that targets a specific device and this gives you a few additional persistence options, but any attack would have to be designed for a particular program running connected to a Bluetooth chip.
A more likely concern in my opinion would be the possibility of a supply chain attack, where someone compromises a Bluetooth chip that they know will be used to construct a particular part.
I don’t think that it’s super likely that either of these will affect the average person, only corporations and governments where espionage is an actual threat, as if you can find a Bluetooth IOT device that you want to mess with, like a Bluetooth enabled door lock, then you’re more likely to be able to find an arbitrary code execution attack which causes it to unlock immediately. Being able to spoof a different Bluetooth device isn’t likely to give you that big of an advantage when you’re working with a device that was already vulnerable for a different reason.
thank you for the nice analysis. this should really be voted highest.
Thank you for the analysis, very insightful!
Do you reckon this is more of an oversight or bug in the BT stack, or a deliberately places backdoor as the title seems to suggest?
From what I can tell from looking at it, this seems like something deliberately left in, but not for malicious reasons. The op codes referenced simply give access to lower level parts of the boards programming. ESP32’s are already a user programmable board, a valid use case is to run your entire application on one if the code being run is lightweight enough to not interfere with the Bluetooth code. Either during development, or during runtime, these undocumented codes are likely used to run specific commands on the board.
The actual issue as far as I can tell, since normally it’s valid usage to rewrite the board over USB, is that ESP32 boards also offer ways to encrypt device code, and require it to be signed, and you are presumably able to mess with this in order to dump code that was expected to be securely encrypted, and overwrite code on devices that was intended to require signing. (https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32s3/security/secure-boot-v2.html#background)
Proving what someone was thinking when they programmed something is extremely difficult unless you can find written evidence of someone specifically saying if they did something or not, but this all seems like a legitimate minor exploit in a device that wasn’t built by, or intended for, people who are working against highly resourced attackers. This is still not a concern for normal people who aren’t concerned about being attacked by spies, and if a nation state wanted to hide a vulnerability in something then there are far easier paths to take than one that only works if you can steal a microcontroller so you can connect to it over USB.
Depending on how Bluetooth stacks handle HCI commands on the device, remote exploitation of the backdoor might be possible via malicious firmware or rogue Bluetooth connections.
I really wish these articles just tell us what these scenarios are. I understand companies need publicity or need to sell software but if it isn’t replicatable and the article says “might be possible” it kind of sounds like a secuity sales pitch.
This is especially the case if an attacker already has root access, planted malware, or pushed a malicious update on the device that opens up low-level access.
This part basically sounds more like a software issue where the attacker has a way in already. The system is already vulernable at this point before using the exploit found.
I don’t think there’s enough information out yet.
It is very interesting though.
This is about silicon. Undocumented instructions have just been found in it but they are not executable unless the ESP32’s firmware uses them. Firmware cannot be edited to use them unless you have an existing vulnerability such as physical access or insecure OTA in existing firmware (as far as researchers know).
I do have a few outside. Probably not the best security-wise. Haha. Those are the first to get patched when one comes out.
Security wise, unless you are being specifically targeted by someone, you are almost certainly fine. And if you are being specifically targeted, I think someone hacking your ESPs is the least of your worries. A malicious attacker that knows your physical location can do a lot more scary things than just spying through ESPs.
Just wait until a jester creates a software that sends an erase flash backdoor command to any BT device it sees.
One of my friends is a type I diabetic. He had some sort of smart thingamajig in his teenage years for measuring blood sugar, so you could monitor it over time or warn your family if you’re in some critical situation.
The jester may mean simply to prank, but they may well have blood on their hands if they fuck up medical devices such as that one.
And runs with an USB cable flashing other peoples ESPs to ruin everyone’s day
In that case, how long til some open source project uses it to make a custom firmware to bypass the manufacturer bs and integrate my cheap IoTs seamlessly into Home assistant?
You can already reflash a lot of devices for this purpose. And you could use esp-home to customise once reflashed
Really? Where can I find this
Heres the top google link i found: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/how-to-flash-a-custom-firmware-to-sonoff/
Esp-home is available as a HA addin, docs here: https://esphome.io/
Thanks
Esp-home also works with the older esp-01 - it was released as a wifi module so there are only two gpio’s, but thats enough for a lot of home automation stuff.
Here’s one i have connected to HA, where HA uses rest-api to capture some data from a game called tacticus, and it shows my available tokens for guild raid and arena
Tasmota is another option if they have your specific device in their list. Otherwise you have to do some debugging to figure out what gpio or i2c address to use.
I think we are basically already there with ESPs :D.
Wrong. Read the analysis. It is a BT vulnerability. One can probably design a cheap attack system that just sends a erase flash command to any BT device in reach, instantly bricking every BT enabled ESP32 device.
Just reread it and no, it’s not a BT vulnerability. The “erase flash” command is something that has to be done by software running outside the BT stack. You can even see that inside the slides. The
UsbBluetoothsoftware is connected to the device with the flawed bluetooth chipset.The vulnerability is that if you have this chipset and compromised software, someone can flash the chipset with compromised flash. They even say that it’s not an easy attack to pull off in the article.
In general, though, physical access to the device’s USB or UART interface would be far riskier and a more realistic attack scenario.
In otherwords, the attack is something that can only be pulled off if there’s also a security vulnerability within other parts of the hardware stack.
Yeah, that’s not the main concern.
We really should be pushing for fully open source stack (firmware, os) in all iot devices. They are not very complicated so this should be entirely possible. Probably will need a EU law though.
I 100% believe firmware should be open source no question about it. There’s so many devices out there especially phones and iot devices that just become e-waste because you can’t do anything with it once it’s not supported if it was open source and documented in some way then it could be used. I have like five cheap phones that I got because they were so cheap but once they lost support they’ve become completely useless even though they still work.
But then big companies wouldn’t be able to keep milking the consumer via planned obsolescence. Won’t somebody think of the shareholders?
This is about silicon. Undocumented instructions have just been found in it but they are not executable unless the ESP32’s firmware uses them. Firmware cannot be edited to use them unless you have an existing vulnerability such as physical access or insecure OTA in existing firmware (as far as researchers know).
Open source stack will not prevent this. It’s not even a backdoor, it’s functionality that these researches think should be hidden from programmers for whatever reason.
Open source devices would have this functionality readily available for programmers. Look at rtl-sdr, using the words of these researches, it has a “backdoor” where a TV dongle may be used to listen to garage key fobs gasp everyone panic now!
thats a very fair point, I had not seen anyone else make this one But the problem is that in this case, this functionality was entirely undocumented. I dont think it was intended for programmers.
Now if the firmware was open source, people would have gotten to know about this much sooner even if not documented. Also such functionality should ideally be gated somehow through some auth mechanism.
Also just like how the linux kernel allows decades old devices to be at the very least patched for security risks, open firmware would allow users of this chip to patch it themselves for bugs, security issues.
Yeah, of course, it would be better in many ways if the firmware wasn’t closed.
Yeah tons of weird little private softwares never get updates, but they aren’t making anyone money either
Backdoored devices are useful for people who can impede that.
And the way EU is approaching privacy, surveillance and all such, - oh-hoh-ho, I don’t think there will be a EU law.
I hate it when an attacker who already has root access to my device gets sightly more access to the firmware. Definitely spin up a website and a logo, maybe a post in Bloomberg.
Too much fanfare and too little real info shared to be of any value. Sounds more like an ad than infosec
Seriously wtf did I just try to read? It sounded like AI slop.
Exactly what it is. A gross example of company trying to get their name out their by sensationalizing their findings.
This isn’t a backdoor. Just a company trying to make a name for themselves by sensationalizing a much smaller discovery.
The other day someone posted in Canada community that Canada should stop using Tesla cars and import Chinese cars. I replied saying, “That’s like replacing one evil with another.” I was downvoted by a lot of people. I should’ve expected it cuz a lot of people have short term memory.
Because that’s not about privacy, that’s about the trade war. Retaliatory tariffs on US cars increase cost of cars for Canadians, as there are almost no car assembled in Canada. Reducing or eliminating tariffs on cars from China would lower cost of new cars for Canadians while keeping the tariffs up.
For privacy and security, not a single new car on the market is decent right now. That should be regulated, but that’s no concern for any politician at the moment.
CCP has backdoor into every tech that comes out of China. It’s not about just privacy. They control democracies based on shaping narratives. They’ll utilize everything that democracy offers and use it against countries. They don’t have freedom of speech or press so they themselves are not victims of it. EVs are really just computers on the road. Flooding the market with Chinese EVs would just mean creating a massive free network on a foreign soil for them.
As opposed to the teslas with the back doors for the us government… but will be moot when Canada is part of the states anyway
Summary: China is not a friend country. It’s a hostile country. Yes, we know.
But the news is… so is the USA to Canada now. A hostile country threatening to annex Canada and trying to cripple the economy as a way to achieve the goal. So either we slap 100% tariffs on US made cars, which would hurt Canadians, or we apply the same tariffs on Chinese cars, so reduce them from where they are at the moment.
All I meant was flooding the market with Chinese cars isn’t a huge security threat to the country. There’s another alternative. European cars.
All cars are computers on the road at this point, not just EVs…
While technically true, that’s not what I meant. For example, Tesla Model 3 has AMD Ryzen chip. It is a full fledged computer CPU. Although my Toyota surely has a computer onboard, it’s nowhere close to this level of tech in the Tesla. EVs from China are at the same or higher level tech-wise compared to Teslas.
There’s been a lot of that lately. Same here in New Zealand.
You dipshits, they’re both the bad guys now.
A lot of people are dumb. Or maybe because they feel offended because they are Chinese, but the reality is that every Chinese company is ultimately controlled by the CCP. If I was fighting a cold war, I would do the same. Sell compromised devices to my trade partners (AKA enemies) so I have leverage when I need it.
Or maybe because they feel offended because they are Chinese
I’m Chinese-American and I’m not offended. The tankies from .ml are
People act like traditional car manufacturers don’t exist anymore even though they all offer EV options…
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Jesus. Okay. So when you say, “being short sighted”, you don’t literally mean the geometry of their eyes is myopic. You mean it figuratively. Exactly like the person you are correcting clearly means it figuratively when they say “short-term memory”.
“China bad” because western media says so. Please disregard the billions of dollars spent by western governments to ensure you keep thinking that way.
It’s just another capitalistic country no better or worse than Canada or the USA. Though, the Chinese government has said their intention is to move towards socialism, so good for them. I’m stuck over here witnessing fascist billionaires loot the government/working class.
Thats super interesting! Write a poem about three gorges dam please
Well, no, China is bad because freedom is very restricted there and because they have ambitions to dominate the world.
Yes, every other world power in the world is more or less the same. People cannot, in general, be trusted to be “good” when given the opportunity to abuse. A world power can be held in check by the presence and efforts of other world powers, though.
No, ‘China bad’ because many many examples of China bad. Such as the topic of this post.
The whole “you can’t criticize China because you’re from a country that also does bad things” is logically worthless. It’s the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy.
Not sure if you realize this but China is also ruled by a kleptocratic billionaire class that loots the working class even moreso than the US, so i’m not sure why you look up to them - China has more billionaires and a much larger wealth divide than the US. Actions speak louder than words and while Xi and the CCP often talk about cracking down on thier ultra-wealthy, they don’t really do much - couple billionaires might disappear occasionally though if they don’t praise the party line publically. One thing is for sure - I don’t see any elite CCP party members that are not also very wealthy. And it’s everyone else that’s propagandized 🤔
You really think they intentionally left a back door requiring on-site serial access?
China is bad, because they too are a colonialism and imperialistic nation.
Just like the US and Russia.
Living conditions there continue to improve, while ours decline. A whole lot of boogie man bullshit. This article is intentionally fear mongering.
The CCP isn’t putting in a back door requiring on-site access in your litter box.
I’d like to know if this is just a firmware update or unfixable, but sadly this seems just an ad rather than news
Here’s an article with a bit more detail… but I’m still unclear whether these backdoor commands are hardware circuits or firmware logic.
Bleeping Computer: Undocumented “backdoor” found in Bluetooth chip used by a billion devices
Solid article. I imagine the folks at the cyberwire podcast will be doing more digging over the weekend for a solid summary come Monday.
Thanks for the link, this article is more clear compared to the posted above.
I’m more interested to the scope of the exploit whether it could touch the flash of the controller or not as you can also do OTA update through the BLE component.
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Even if it were fixable, it would be up to manufacturers to push updates. I doubt any really care enough.
It is not easy to determine how fixable this is. IIRC, the ESP32 has the wireless stack hidden from user space, and I am not sure if it is a blob included during link time, or if it is stored in a ROM of the chip. I do have the chips and the development enviroment in my studio, but (luckily) I decided to use a different chip for my project.
But I know there is a load of systems using either the ESP32 as their main processor, or as an auxiliary processor to add WiFi or BT capabilities, so this really is a big oh shit moment.
There is nothing to “fix”. Undocumented instructions have just been found in the silicon but they are not executable unless the ESP32’s firmware their owner flashed to give it a purpose uses them. No pre-2025 firmware that we know of uses these instructions, and they might turn out to be buggy so compilers might not adopt them. If they turn out OK, the documentation of the instruction set will need an update, and compilers will be able to take advantage of the new instructions.
Weird that they removed the reference to ESP32, one of the most common and widely known microcontrollers, from the headline.
Please update the title of this post to mention the update
How so?
Idk maybe specify that it was determined to not be a backdoor. Right now it reads as anti-china fear mongering.
Could be propaganda as well - why not scare the monkeys with the bad Chinese? Without ESPs the market is so much easier to control.
Note:I use both the ES8266ex and different ESP32s in my projects.
Thank you, I keep getting down voted because I said the same, but obviously other get it. Appreciate you and the sanity check!
You can edit post titles as well as content (even images!) on Lemmy.
The Chinese adding back doors into their software/hardware.
Say it ain’t so!
Say it ain’t so
Your bug is a heartbleeder
Say it ain’t so
My NIC is a bytetakerIt ain’t so.
To use the “backdoor” an attacker needs to have full access to the esp32 powered device already.
It’s like claiming that being able to leave your desk without locking your PC is a backdoor in your OS.
Yes, this is about undocumented instructions found in the silicon but they are not executable unless the ESP32’s firmware uses them. Firmware cannot be edited to use them unless you have an existing vulnerability such as physical access or insecure OTA in existing firmware (as far as researchers know).
It is good to question the “backdoor” allegations - maybe the instructions’ microcode was buggy and they didn’t want to release it.
tech backdoors are only okay when us good guys require em
China ain’t our friend but neither is our own regime, I don’t get the normies only caring about privacy and security when chinaman do the thing
Then they tuck their dicks because they got nothing to hide when domestic spook is doing the same
pathetic and intellectually disingenuous
Where did anyone say anything remotely like that?
I think it’s sarcasm mate.
I wouldnt be so sure about that. I’ve heard people say stuff that was mindbogglingly dumber than that, completely seriously.
it was in fact sarcasm
thats what /s is for.
How about all tech backdoors are bad and we should aim to use and make software and hardware that is ethically produced and usable without selling out your privacy and security?
Like a PRISM for China, is every powerful country just backdooring each other?
Thats hot.
One more reason to have actual open-source drivers instead of binary blobs…
The rebuttal wasn’t as comforting as some are making it out to be. They seem to be more interested in the semantics of it not being a backdoor tied to a specific product, which appears to be true.
Rather it is a potential for vulnerability that exists in all wireless implementation, which seems to me to be a bigger issue.
It’s a vulnerability where an attacker already needs code execution on the device/physical access.
If you have that you’re already compromised no matter what.
The biggest risk would be IoT devices.
That’s just the summary of the entire existence of IoT devices
The issue is where the undocumented commands are. They aren’t just allowing any old external person to send payloads to this.
It’s kind of like noticing that someone unexpectedly hid a spare key next to the door… On the inside of the house. Like, sure, maybe the owner would have like to know about that key, but since you have to be inside the house to get to it, it doesn’t really make a difference.
I was reading someone else’s explanation and they said it’s the equivalent of every computer possibly having a backdoor because there is code in a computer that a bad actor can use. There are extra commands that could possibly be used for a backdoor if a malicious actor found a way to use those bits of code. It’s much less oh here is a security vulnerability that is being used and more of a if a robber breaks into our house which is possible they will rob us situation.
Fukin dmnit! I just spent the last several months fine tuning a PCB design supporting this platform. I have , what i believe to be my last iteration, being sent to fab now. I have to look i to this. My solution isnt using bluetooth, so i dont know if im vulnerable.
Its not a backdoor, you’re most likely fine.
Go for it. It’s a bullshit attention grab. No backdoor, just some undocumented vendor commands (which is the norm for virtually every chip out there).
The exploit requires physical access. It’s not exploitable in 99% of cases
Not the first time a backdoor was found on Chinese made hardware and it won‘t be the last time. Decoupling can‘t happen quickly enough.
Which government’s backdoors would you prefer?
“We know you have a choice in oppressive governments, so we appreciate you choosing ours.”
None of them, that’s why the only things in my house that connect to the internet are my computers, game consoles, and cell phone
Assuming you’re not joking here, if your computers are any way modern they almost certainly have a backdoor.
Obviously, but I trust my Linux mint laptop a hell of a lot better than my aunt’s XIPPLG branded wifi cat feeder that she bought off Amazon
You probably shouldn’t, check out Intel management engine and AMD secure technology.
From what I understand, the only way to mitigate the risks relating to IME or AMD PSP is to simply not have a computer in the first place. Like I’ve said elsewhere twice now, it’s worth mitigating some risks even if we can’t mitigate all of them. I don’t want the most advanced computing device in my home to be an astrolabe.
I don’t think Lemmy shitposters are getting them premium zero days used on them.
This isn’t some crazy zero day, it’s pretty well known. Intel management engine and AMD secure technology.
I guarantee all off those have components from manufacturers that a government could pressure for a backdoor.
You are correct, and it doesn’t change my stance at all. It’s still worth it to mitigate risk even if you can’t mitigate all risk.
Like, the fact that my 3d printer is already a fire hazard does not justify leaving a bunch of candles unattended
Not sure if joking or naive…
Like I said 6 hours ago, just because I can’t mitigate all of the risk doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t mitigate as much as I reasonably can.
My 3d printer is a fire hazard, but that’s no excuse for leaving a bunch of candles unattended.
Ah I missed the other comment, my client still had a cached view apparently. And definitely true regarding mitigation, your phrasing just read funny to me :)
True, but the ESP32 is used by a lot of devices. This backdoor is pretty huge in scope of devices impacted.
It depends on what the method of attack is. I’m not seeing anything saying that it would be possible to exploit wirelessly, so this could easily be mostly a non-issue.
I mean, most users here are browsing using a device with an AMD or Intel CPU, both with known backdoors. Not the first time a backdoor was found on American made hardware and it won’t be the last.
Gotta blame China to get upvoted on Lemmy.
Or use a precise title. It’s not a backdoor or a “backdoor”.
Yeah, one of those is factually correct and got upvoted…
You’re kidding, right?
