CVE-2016-3902 in Android
Summary
by MITRE
drivers/platform/msm/ipa/ipa_qmi_service.c in the Qualcomm IPA driver in Android before 2016-10-05 on Nexus 5X and 6P devices allows attackers to obtain sensitive information via a crafted application, aka Android internal bug 29953313 and Qualcomm internal bug CR 1044072.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/22/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-3902 resides within the Qualcomm IPA (Internet Protocol Accelerator) driver component of Android operating systems, specifically affecting devices including the Nexus 5X and 6P models. This security flaw manifests in the ipa_qmi_service.c file which handles Qualcomm's QMI (Qualcomm MSM Interface) service communications. The issue represents a information disclosure vulnerability that enables malicious applications to extract sensitive system data through carefully crafted payloads, demonstrating the critical nature of driver-level security flaws in mobile operating systems.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and improper access controls within the IPA driver's QMI service interface. Attackers can exploit this weakness by submitting specially constructed requests to the IPA service through the QMI communication channel, potentially gaining access to kernel memory contents, device configuration details, or other privileged information normally restricted from user-space applications. This type of vulnerability typically falls under CWE-200 - "Information Exposure" and represents a classic case of insufficient privilege checking in kernel space components. The flaw operates at the kernel level where the IPA driver processes QMI messages, making it particularly dangerous as it bypasses standard user-space security boundaries.
The operational impact of CVE-2016-3902 extends beyond simple information disclosure, as the sensitive data potentially accessible through this vulnerability could enable further exploitation attempts. An attacker who successfully exploits this flaw could gather device-specific information such as hardware identifiers, memory layouts, or configuration parameters that could be leveraged in subsequent attacks. This vulnerability particularly affects the Android security model by undermining the isolation between user applications and privileged system components, creating potential pathways for privilege escalation or advanced persistent threat activities. The vulnerability's presence in the IPA driver also impacts network connectivity and security features that rely on this hardware acceleration component, potentially compromising the overall security posture of affected devices.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate system updates from device manufacturers and users, as the patch addresses the root cause through proper input validation and access control enforcement in the IPA driver's QMI service implementation. Organizations should implement comprehensive device management policies to ensure timely deployment of security patches, particularly for enterprise devices running affected Android versions. The fix typically involves strengthening parameter validation within the QMI service handler functions and ensuring proper privilege checking before exposing sensitive kernel data to user-space applications. This vulnerability highlights the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches for mobile device drivers and underscores the need for robust security testing of kernel-level components, particularly those handling inter-process communication and hardware abstraction layers. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving privilege escalation and information gathering through kernel-level exploits, emphasizing the critical nature of protecting system drivers from malicious input manipulation.