CVE-2020-9117

Vulnerability

The vulnerability resides in the packet processing module of Huawei nova 4 (versions earlier than 10.0.0.165(C01E34R2P4)) and SydneyM-AL00 (versions earlier than 10.0.0.165(C00E66R1P5)) smartphones. It is an out-of-bounds read and write flaw caused by insufficient validation of crafted packets. An attacker with specific permissions can trigger it by sending a malformed packet with a specific parameter to the affected device [1].

Exploitation

An attacker must have specific permissions on the device (e.g., local access or the ability to send packets to the affected component). The attacker crafts a malformed packet containing a specific parameter and transmits it to the vulnerable product. The insufficient validation in the packet processing code leads to the out-of-bounds access [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation can result in information leakage (reading out-of-bounds memory) or arbitrary code execution (by writing out-of-bounds). The attacker could potentially gain elevated privileges or execute malicious code on the targeted device [1].

Mitigation

Huawei has released software updates to fix this vulnerability. The resolved versions are 10.0.0.165(C01E34R2P4) for HUAWEI nova 4 and 10.0.0.165(C00E66R1P5) for SydneyM-AL00. Users are advised to upgrade to these versions or later [1].