CISA discloses Samsung vulnerability exploitation

Target Industry

Indiscriminate, opportunistic targeting.

Overview

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed the exploitation of a Samsung vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-21492 (CVSSv3 Score: 4.4). The flaw pertains to bypassing Android address space layout randomization (ASLR) protection. ASLR is a security feature that randomizes memory addresses where key device components are loaded into the memory of the device, thus increasing the difficulty for threat actors to exploit memory-related vulnerabilities.

Impact

Successful exploitation of CVE-2023-21492 allows a privileged local threat to bypass ASLR and could allow for the exploitation of memory-related vulnerabilities as well as the initiation of buffer overflow attacks.

Vulnerability Detection

Samsung has released security updates with regards to this vulnerability. As such, previous versions are vulnerable to potential exploit.

Affected Products

Selected Android 11, 12, 13 devices.

Containment, Mitigations & Remediations

It is strongly recommended that users apply the relevant patches for the vulnerability as outlined in the Samsung Advisory.

Indicators of Compromise

No specific Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) are available currently.

Threat Landscape

Samsung occupies a significant proportion of the mobile market share. Given that threat actors generally utilise a combination of probability and asset value to determine which attack surfaces to focus on, Samsung products have become a prime target for threat actors. Due to the fact that mobile devices have become an integral aspect of both personal and business affairs, threat actors will continue to exploit vulnerabilities contained within the associated devices in an attempt to extract the sensitive information contained therein.

Threat Group

No attribution to specific threat actors or groups has been identified at the time of writing.

Mitre Methodologies

Common Weakness Enumeration:

– CWE-532 – Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

Further Information

CISA Advisory