CVE-2016-3814 in Android
Summary
by MITRE
The NVIDIA camera driver in Android before 2016-07-05 on Nexus 9 devices allows attackers to obtain sensitive information via a crafted application, aka Android internal bug 28193342.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/22/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-3814 represents a critical information disclosure flaw within the NVIDIA camera driver component of Android operating systems. This issue specifically affected Nexus 9 devices running Android versions prior to the 2016-07-05 security patch release, creating a significant attack surface that could be exploited by malicious applications. The vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and memory management within the camera driver subsystem, allowing unauthorized access to sensitive system information that should remain protected from application-level interference.
The technical implementation of this flaw involves improper handling of memory buffers and data structures within the NVIDIA Tegra camera driver module. When a crafted application attempts to interact with the camera hardware through the Android framework, the driver fails to properly validate input parameters and memory access requests. This misconfiguration enables attackers to read beyond allocated memory boundaries and extract sensitive data from kernel space, including system memory contents, driver internal state information, and potentially other confidential data that should be restricted to privileged system components. The vulnerability operates at the intersection of hardware driver and operating system security boundaries, making it particularly dangerous as it can bypass traditional application sandboxing mechanisms.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates substantial risk for users of affected Nexus 9 devices, as it allows for the extraction of sensitive information that could be used for further exploitation or reconnaissance activities. Attackers could potentially gather information about the device's memory layout, driver configurations, and system internals that would aid in developing more sophisticated attacks against the device. The vulnerability's classification as an information disclosure issue means that while it may not directly enable arbitrary code execution, it provides attackers with valuable reconnaissance data that could be leveraged to craft targeted attacks against other system components or exploit additional vulnerabilities present on the device.
The security implications of this vulnerability align with CWE-200, which addresses "Information Exposure," and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1082, "System Information Discovery," as it enables adversaries to gather detailed system information. The flaw demonstrates a fundamental weakness in the Android security model's handling of hardware driver interfaces, where insufficient validation of driver interactions allows malicious applications to access kernel-level information. Organizations and users should prioritize applying the relevant security patches released by Google and NVIDIA to address this vulnerability. Mitigation strategies include immediate deployment of the Android security update, implementation of application whitelisting policies to restrict potentially malicious applications, and monitoring for suspicious camera driver activity. Additionally, security teams should conduct vulnerability assessments to identify other potential similar flaws in driver components and ensure proper input validation mechanisms are in place across all hardware abstraction layers within mobile operating systems.
This vulnerability serves as a reminder of the critical importance of proper memory management and input validation in kernel-level drivers, particularly in mobile environments where hardware and software components must work seamlessly together while maintaining strict security boundaries. The incident highlights the need for comprehensive security testing of driver components and the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches across all system components to prevent exploitation of such fundamental flaws.