How to sink a UBoot: Understanding bootloader attack surface

Abstract

Uboot is arguably the defacto standard for providing adaptable bootloader environments for a plethora of infrastructures. Unfortunately some of the configuration options may expose vulnerabilities which compromise environments and may allow attackers to take control during privileged contexts. The talk included here will cover some of the Uboot basics, detail some architectural aspects of modern bootloaders as well as ways an eager hacker can exploit Uboot in order to drop a shell and take control. Bootloaders are an obscure part of the operating system, they load the operating system, setup up the hardware and present us with a working, running machine all out of sight and out of mind.