Safety flaws in Telit Cinterion mobile modems, broadly utilized in sectors together with industrial, healthcare, and telecommunications, might enable distant attackers to execute arbitrary code through SMS.
A set of eight separate points, seven of them with identifiers CVE-2023-47610 by way of CVE-2023-47616 and one other that has but to be registered, have been disclosed final November by safety researchers at Kaspersky’s ICS CERT division.
Earlier than publishing the safety points, the safety firm had reported them to the seller in February 2023.
On Saturday, on the OffensiveCon convention in Berlin, Alexander Kozlov and Sergey Anufrienko can be offering low degree technical particulars concerning the safety points and the way a risk actor might exploit them to take management of susceptible Telit Cinterion units.
SMS to system takeover
Probably the most extreme of the vulnerabilities is CVE-2023-47610, a heap overflow downside that impacts the modem’s Consumer Airplane Location (SUPL) message handlers.
Kaspersky, in collaboration with Telit and based mostly on an intensive evaluation of the technical particulars, assigned it a severity rating of 8.8 out of the utmost 10. Nevertheless, NIST’s evaluation is that the problem has vital influence and acquired a severity rating of 9.8.
Attackers exploiting the flaw through specifically crafted SMS messages might set off the vulnerability and execute arbitrary code remotely on the modem with out requiring authentication.
In a report shared with BleepingComputer, the researchers say that the SMS messaging interface is current on all modems and that accessing it’s attainable if the subscriber variety of the goal modem within the mobile operator’s community is understood.
They clarify that operator restrictions might typically stop sending binary SMS however a pretend base station ought to bypass this limitation.
By exploiting CVE-2023-47610 to execute arbitrary code through SMS, an attacker can get deep-level entry to the modem’s working system.
“This entry additionally facilitates the manipulation of RAM and flash reminiscence, growing the potential to grab full management over the modem’s functionalities—all with out authentication or requiring bodily entry to the system” – Kaspersky
Though the remainder of the vulnerabilities that Kaspersky researchers found acquired a decrease severity rating, they can be utilized to compromise the integrity of MIDlets – Java-based purposes with varied capabilities.
In accordance with Kaspersky, an attacker might obtain code execution with elevated privileges (producer degree) by circumventing digital signature checks (CVE-2023-47611). This may pose a risk not simply to information confidentiality and integrity but additionally to broader community safety and system integrity.
Though the analysis focused the Cinterion EHS5-E collection modem, as a result of different merchandise from the seller have comparable software program and {hardware} structure further variants are additionally impacted:
- Cinterion BGS5
- Cinterion EHS5/6/7
- Cinterion PDS5/6/8
- Cinterion ELS61/81
- Cinterion PLS62
Telit mounted a few of the disclosed vulnerabilities however some stay unpatched, Kaspersky advised BleepingComputer.
“The vulnerabilities we discovered, coupled with the widespread deployment of those units in varied sectors, spotlight the potential for intensive international disruption,” says Evgeny Goncharov, head of Kaspersky ICS CERT.
Goncharov notes that as a result of the modems are embedded in different options, it’s a problem to find out which merchandise are impacted.
The safety firm has some suggestions to mitigate the threats, which is a lot of the occasions attainable by working with the telecom operator. One technique is to disable SMS sending to impacted units and utilizing a securely configured personal APN.
Kaspersky additionally recommends imposing utility signature verification to forestall the set up of untrusted MIDIets on the modem and take measures to forestall unauthorized bodily entry to the units.