Vulnerabilities > CVE-2015-9157 - Race Condition vulnerability in Qualcomm products
Summary
In Android before 2018-04-05 or earlier security patch level on Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile and Snapdragon Wear IPQ4019, MDM9206, MDM9607, MDM9625, MDM9635M, MSM8909W, SD 210/SD 212/SD 205, SD 400, SD 410/12, SD 600, SD 615/16/SD 415, SD 617, SD 650/52, SD 800, SD 808, and SD 810, in widevine_dash_cmd_handler(), rsp buffers are passed off to widevine commands. These rsp buffers have values in them, such as buffer lengths, that need to be validated to ensure that no buffer overflow/over-reads happen. However, rsp buffers are not always in locked memory, meaning a time-of-check, time-of-use issue can occur where we check that the value is valid, but then a race condition occurs where this memory is swapped out with a different, possibly out of range, value.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Leveraging Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
- Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.