CAPEC-665: Exploitation of Thunderbolt Protection Flaws

Description
<p>An adversary leverages a firmware weakness within the Thunderbolt protocol, on a computing device to manipulate Thunderbolt controller firmware in order to exploit vulnerabilities in the implementation of authorization and verification schemes within Thunderbolt protection mechanisms. Upon gaining physical access to a target device, the adversary conducts high-level firmware manipulation of the victim Thunderbolt controller SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) flash, through the use of a SPI Programing device and an external Thunderbolt device, typically as the target device is booting up. If successful, this allows the adversary to modify memory, subvert authentication mechanisms, spoof identities and content, and extract data and memory from the target device. Currently 7 major vulnerabilities exist within Thunderbolt protocol with 9 attack vectors as noted in the Execution Flow.<p>
Extended Description

This attack first requires the adversary to trick the victim into installing a Trojan Horse application on their system, such as a malicious web browser plugin, which the adversary then leverages to mount the attack. The victim interacts with a web application, such as a banking website, in a normal manner and under the assumption that the connection is secure. However, the adversary can now alter and/or reroute traffic between the client application (e.g., web browser) and the coinciding endpoint, while simultaneously displaying intended transactions and data back to the user. The adversary may also be able to glean cookies, HTTP sessions, and SSL client certificates, which can be used to pivot into an authenticated intranet. Identifying AITB is often difficult because these attacks are successful even when security mechanisms such as SSL/PKI and multifactor authentication are present, since they still function as intended during the attack.

Severity :

Very High

Possibility :

Low

Type :

Detailed
Prerequisites

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

  • The adversary needs at least a few minutes of physical access to a system with an open Thunderbolt port, version 3 or lower, and an external thunderbolt device controlled by the adversary with maliciously crafted software and firmware, via an SPI Programming device, to exploit weaknesses in security protections.
Skills required

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

  • High Detailed knowledge on various system motherboards, PCI Express Domain, SPI, and Thunderbolt Protocol in order to interface with internal system components via external devices.
  • High Detailed knowledge on OS/Kernel memory address space, Direct Memory Access (DMA) mapping, Input-Output Memory Management Units (IOMMUs), and vendor memory protections for data leakage.
  • High Detailed knowledge on scripting and SPI programming in order to configure and modify Thunderbolt controller firmware and software configurations.
Resources required

SPI Programming device capable of modifying/configuring or replacing the firmware of Thunderbolt device stored on SPI Flash of target Thunderbolt controller, as well as modification/spoofing of adversary-controlled Thunderbolt controller.

Precrafted scripts/tools capable of implementing the modification and replacement of Thunderbolt Firmware.

Thunderbolt-enabled computing device capable of interfacing with target Thunderbolt device and extracting/dumping data and memory contents of target device.

Visit http://capec.mitre.org/ for more details.