Bits, Please!: Extracting Qualcomm’s KeyMaster Keys – Breaking Android Full Disk Encryption

3 Comments

1. July 4, 2016 at 6:28 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
   Researcher uses exploits to extract disk encryption keys from Android devices with Qualcomm chips; publicly-available attack code works on unpatched devices — Unlike Apple’s iOS, Android is vulnerable to several key-extraction techniques. — Privacy advocates take note …

   Android’s full-disk encryption just got much weaker—here’s why
   Unlike Apple’s iOS, Android is vulnerable to several key-extraction techniques.
   http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/androids-full-disk-encryption-just-got-much-weaker-heres-why/

   Privacy advocates take note: Android’s full-disk encryption just got dramatically easier to defeat on devices that use chips from semiconductor maker Qualcomm, thanks to new research that reveals several methods to extract crypto keys off of a locked handset. Those methods include publicly available attack code that works against an estimated 37 percent of enterprise users.

   A blog post published Thursday revealed that in stark contrast to the iPhone’s iOS, Qualcomm-powered Android devices store the disk encryption keys in software. That leaves the keys vulnerable to a variety of attacks that can pull a key off a device. From there, the key can be loaded onto a server cluster, field-programmable gate array, or supercomputer that has been optimized for super-fast password cracking.

   https://bits-please.blogspot.fi/2016/06/extracting-qualcomms-keymaster-keys.html

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2. July 4, 2016 at 1:32 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Extracting Qualcomm’s KeyMaster Keys – Breaking Android Full Disk Encryption
   https://bits-please.blogspot.fi/2016/06/extracting-qualcomms-keymaster-keys.html

   Conclusions

   The key derivation is not hardware bound. Instead of using a real hardware key which cannot be extracted by software (for example, the SHK), the KeyMaster application uses a key derived from the SHK and directly available to TrustZone.
   OEMs can comply with law enforcement to break Full Disk Encryption. Since the key is available to TrustZone, OEMs could simply create and sign a TrustZone image which extracts the KeyMaster keys and flash it to the target device. This would allow law enforcement to easily brute-force the FDE password off the device using the leaked keys.
   Patching TrustZone vulnerabilities does not necessarily protect you from this issue. Even on patched devices, if an attacker can obtain the encrypted disk image (e.g. by using forensic tools), they can then “downgrade” the device to a vulnerable version, extract the key by exploiting TrustZone, and use them to brute-force the encryption. Since the key is derived directly from the SHK, and the SHK cannot be modified, this renders all down-gradable devices directly vulnerable.
   Android FDE is only as strong as the TrustZone kernel or KeyMaster. Finding a TrustZone kernel vulnerability or a vulnerability in the KeyMaster trustlet, directly leads to the disclosure of the KeyMaster keys, thus enabling off-device attacks on Android FDE.

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3. July 8, 2016 at 6:43 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Encryption Bypass Vulnerability Impacts Half of Android Devices
   https://threatpost.com/encryption-bypass-vulnerability-impacts-half-of-android-devices/119039/

   A flaw in chipmaker Qualcomm’s mobile processor, used in 60 percent of Android mobiles, allows attackers to crack full disk encryption on the device. Only 10 percent of Android devices running Qualcomm processors are not vulnerable to this type of attack.

   Researchers at Duo Labs said the vulnerability is tied to Android’s problem-plagued mediaserver component coupled with a security hole in Qualcomm’s Secure Execution Environment (QSEE). Together, these vulnerabilities could allow someone with physical access to the phone to bypass the full disk encryption (FDE).

   Duo Labs estimates 57 percent of Android phones are still vulnerable to related mediaserver attacks. “Compared to 60 percent of Android phones that were vulnerable to the Android attack in January, the security posture of our dataset has improved slightly, with 57 percent of Android phones vulnerable to the latest attack,” according to a Duo Labs blog post

   https://duo.com/blog/more-than-half-of-android-phones-vulnerable-to-encryption-bypass-attackshttps:/duo.com/blog/more-than-half-of-android-phones-vulnerable-to-encryption-bypass-attacks

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