CVE-2024-48985: mbed Buffer Overflow — Fix

Description

An issue was discovered in MBed OS 6.16.0. During processing of HCI packets, the software dynamically determines the length of the packet data by reading 2 bytes from the packet data. A buffer is then allocated to contain the entire packet, the size of which is calculated as the length of the packet body determined earlier and the header length. If the allocate fails because the specified packet is too large, no exception handling occurs and hciTrSerialRxIncoming continues to write bytes into the 4-byte large temporary header buffer, leading to a buffer overflow. This can be leveraged into an arbitrary write by an attacker. It is possible to overwrite the pointer to the buffer that is supposed to receive the contents of the packet body but which couldn't be allocated. One can then overwrite the state variable used by the function to determine which step of the parsing process is currently being executed. This advances the function to the next state, where it proceeds to copy data to that arbitrary location. The packet body is then written wherever the corrupted data pointer is pointing.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

7.5

HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-120 CWE-120

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Versions
arm	mbed	All

References

Advisories & Patches

https://github.com/mbed-ce/mbed-os/pull/384

Other References

https://github.com/mbed-ce/mbed-os/blob/54e8693ef4ff7e025018094f290a1d5cf380941f/connectivity/FEATURE_BLE/source/cordio/stack_adaptation/hci_tr.c#L200

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-48985? +

An issue was discovered in MBed OS 6.16.0. During processing of HCI packets, the software dynamically determines the length of the packet data by reading 2 bytes from the packet data. A buffer is then allocated to contain the entire packet, the size of which is calculated as the length of the packet body determined earlier and the header length. If the allocate fails because the specified packet is too large, no exception handling occurs and hciTrSerialRxIncoming continues to write bytes into the 4-byte large temporary header buffer, leading to a buffer overflow. This can be leveraged into an arbitrary write by an attacker. It is possible to overwrite the pointer to the buffer that is supposed to receive the contents of the packet body but which couldn't be allocated. One can then overwrite the state variable used by the function to determine which step of the parsing process is currently being executed. This advances the function to the next state, where it proceeds to copy data to that arbitrary location. The packet body is then written wherever the corrupted data pointer is pointing. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).

How severe is CVE-2024-48985? +

CVE-2024-48985 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching.

What products are affected by CVE-2024-48985? +

CVE-2024-48985 affects products from arm, specifically: mbed. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2024-48985? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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