CVE-2020-11250 in Snapdragon Wired Infrastructure and Networking
Summary
by MITRE • 06/09/2021
Use after free due to race condition when reopening the device driver repeatedly in Snapdragon Auto, Snapdragon Compute, Snapdragon Connectivity, Snapdragon Consumer IOT, Snapdragon Industrial IOT, Snapdragon Mobile, Snapdragon Voice & Music, Snapdragon Wearables, Snapdragon Wired Infrastructure and Networking
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/11/2021
This vulnerability represents a critical use-after-free condition that emerges from a race condition during repeated device driver reopens within multiple Qualcomm Snapdragon product lines. The flaw occurs when the system attempts to manage device driver resources in a manner that allows for memory deallocation followed by subsequent access, creating a dangerous window where malicious actors could exploit the timing gap between resource release and actual memory cleanup. The vulnerability affects a broad spectrum of Qualcomm's automotive, mobile, compute, and networking platforms, indicating a fundamental issue in how these systems handle driver lifecycle management.
The technical implementation involves a race condition where multiple threads or processes attempt to access the same device driver interface simultaneously, leading to scenarios where one thread deallocates memory while another continues to reference it. This particular weakness manifests specifically during device driver reopening operations, where the system's resource management logic fails to properly synchronize access patterns. The flaw can be triggered through repeated opening and closing of device driver interfaces, potentially allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause system instability. This vulnerability directly maps to CWE-416, which describes the use of freed memory condition, and represents a classic example of improper resource management in concurrent systems.
The operational impact of this vulnerability spans across multiple critical deployment environments including automotive systems, mobile devices, industrial IoT deployments, and networking infrastructure. Attackers could potentially leverage this weakness to escalate privileges, execute unauthorized code, or cause denial of service conditions that might affect vehicle safety systems, mobile device functionality, or industrial control networks. The widespread nature of affected product lines means that the potential attack surface extends across numerous device categories, from consumer smartphones to industrial automation systems. This vulnerability could enable adversaries to gain persistent access to systems, manipulate device behavior, or compromise the integrity of critical infrastructure components. The attack vectors align with ATT&CK techniques related to privilege escalation and persistence mechanisms, particularly through driver manipulation and system resource abuse.
Mitigation strategies should focus on implementing proper synchronization mechanisms during device driver operations, including mutex locks, semaphores, or other concurrency control methods to prevent race conditions. System administrators should ensure timely patch deployment for affected Qualcomm platforms and consider implementing runtime monitoring to detect anomalous driver behavior patterns. The vulnerability highlights the importance of robust resource management practices in embedded systems and emphasizes the need for thorough testing of driver lifecycle operations under concurrent access scenarios. Additionally, implementing memory safety techniques such as address sanitizers and runtime checks can help detect and prevent exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider reducing the frequency of driver reopening operations where possible and implementing proper resource validation mechanisms to prevent access to freed memory regions.