CVE-2014-9884 in Android
Summary
by MITRE
drivers/misc/qseecom.c in the Qualcomm components in Android before 2016-08-05 on Nexus 5 and 7 (2013) devices does not validate certain pointers, which allows attackers to gain privileges via a crafted application, aka Android internal bug 28769920 and Qualcomm internal bug CR580740.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/12/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-9884 resides within the Qualcomm Secure Execution Environment Communication driver component, specifically in the drivers/misc/qseecom.c file within the Android kernel source tree. This flaw affects Android versions prior to the 2016-08-05 security patch release and particularly impacts Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013) devices. The vulnerability stems from inadequate pointer validation mechanisms within the secure execution environment communication interface that governs interactions between the application processor and the secure world of the Qualcomm SoC. This represents a critical security weakness that undermines the fundamental security boundaries designed to protect sensitive operations within the device's secure execution environment.
The technical flaw manifests as a lack of proper pointer validation within the qseecom driver's ioctl handling functions, which are responsible for facilitating communication between user-space applications and the secure execution environment. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by crafting malicious applications that manipulate pointer values passed to the driver, bypassing the normal security checks that should validate memory addresses and prevent unauthorized access to privileged operations. This vulnerability falls under the CWE-787 weakness category, which specifically addresses out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities that occur when a pointer is not properly validated before use. The flaw enables attackers to escalate privileges from untrusted application context to kernel-level access, effectively breaking the security model that separates trusted secure execution environments from untrusted user applications.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted, as it allows attackers to achieve privilege escalation without requiring physical access to the device or sophisticated exploitation techniques. Once exploited, the vulnerability provides attackers with complete control over the device's secure execution environment, potentially enabling them to access encrypted data, extract cryptographic keys, modify system components, or establish persistent backdoors. The attack surface is particularly concerning given that the vulnerability affects widely deployed Nexus devices from 2013, which were among the first to implement Qualcomm's secure execution environment features. This vulnerability directly maps to the ATT&CK technique T1068, which describes the use of local privilege escalation to gain higher-level permissions within a system, and T1543, which covers the use of kernel modules or drivers to maintain persistence and execute malicious code with elevated privileges.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2014-9884 require immediate deployment of the security patches released by Google and Qualcomm, which include proper pointer validation mechanisms within the qseecom driver. Organizations and individuals should ensure their Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013) devices receive the 2016-08-05 security update that addresses this vulnerability. The patch implementation involves adding proper validation checks for all pointer parameters passed to the driver's ioctl functions, ensuring that memory addresses fall within expected ranges and are properly validated before being dereferenced. Additionally, device manufacturers should implement runtime monitoring mechanisms to detect anomalous pointer behavior and consider adopting more robust kernel security features such as kernel address space layout randomization and stack canaries. System administrators should also implement proper application sandboxing and restrict the installation of unsigned applications that could potentially exploit this vulnerability, as the flaw specifically targets the interaction between user-space applications and kernel drivers through the Qualcomm secure execution environment communication interface.