Researcher Has New Attack For Embedded Devices

tinkertim writes "Computerworld is reporting that a researcher at Juniper has discovered an interesting vulnerability that can be used to compromise ARM and Xscale based electronic devices such as many popular routers and mobile phones. According to the article, the vulnerability would allow hackers to execute code and compromise personal information or re-direct internet traffic at the router level. Juniper plans to demonstrate not only the researcher's discovery, but also how he managed to use a common JTAG developed Boundary Scan to discover the vulnerability at this month's CanSecWest conference in hopes of shifting more of the black hat community to looking at devices instead of software."

Comments

If you have physical access, you already won.

[argent]

About the only part of the software industry that doesn't assume that you've already won if you've got physical access to the box (and getting into a JTAG port kind of implies that) are the folks who still have a dog in the DRM fight... and there's fewer of them every year.

Re:Via JTAG?

[yorgasor]

No, he used JTAG to discover the vulnerability. He will disclose how to take advantage of the vulnerability at the conference. He's just letting other people know they can peek into hardware using the JTAG interface as well.