Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem

Dave Tian; Grant Hernandez; Joseph I. Choi; Vanessa Frost; Christie Ruales; Patrick Traynor; Hayawardh Vijayakumar; Lee Harrison; Amir Rahmati; Michael Grace; Kevin R.B. Butler

Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem

Dave Tian
, Grant Hernandez
, Joseph I. Choi
, Vanessa Frost
, Christie Ruales
, Patrick Traynor
, Hayawardh Vijayakumar
, Lee Harrison
, Amir Rahmati
, Michael Grace
, Kevin R.B. Butler

Computer Science

University of Florida
Samsung

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

AT commands, originally designed in the early 80s for controlling modems, are still in use in most modern smartphones to support telephony functions. The role of AT commands in these devices has vastly expanded through vendor-specific customizations, yet the extent of their functionality is unclear and poorly documented. In this paper, we systematically retrieve and extract 3,500 AT commands from over 2,000 Android smartphone firmware images across 11 vendors. We methodically test our corpus of AT commands against eight Android devices from four different vendors through their USB interface and characterize the powerful functionality exposed, including the ability to rewrite device firmware, bypass Android security mechanisms, exfiltrate sensitive device information, perform screen unlocks, and inject touch events solely through the use of AT commands. We demonstrate that the AT command interface contains an alarming amount of unconstrained functionality and represents a broad attack surface on Android devices.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium
Publisher	USENIX Association
Pages	273-290
Number of pages	18
ISBN (Electronic)	9781939133045
State	Published - 2018
Event	27th USENIX Security Symposium - Baltimore, United States Duration: Aug 15 2018 → Aug 17 2018

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium

Conference

Conference	27th USENIX Security Symposium
Country/Territory	United States
City	Baltimore
Period	08/15/18 → 08/17/18

Cite this

Tian, D., Hernandez, G., Choi, J. I., Frost, V., Ruales, C., Traynor, P., Vijayakumar, H., Harrison, L., Rahmati, A., Grace, M., & Butler, K. R. B. (2018). Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem. In Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium (pp. 273-290). (Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium). USENIX Association.

@inproceedings{30792fd7b2b44c93a24303d838f2a206,

title = "Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem",

abstract = "AT commands, originally designed in the early 80s for controlling modems, are still in use in most modern smartphones to support telephony functions. The role of AT commands in these devices has vastly expanded through vendor-specific customizations, yet the extent of their functionality is unclear and poorly documented. In this paper, we systematically retrieve and extract 3,500 AT commands from over 2,000 Android smartphone firmware images across 11 vendors. We methodically test our corpus of AT commands against eight Android devices from four different vendors through their USB interface and characterize the powerful functionality exposed, including the ability to rewrite device firmware, bypass Android security mechanisms, exfiltrate sensitive device information, perform screen unlocks, and inject touch events solely through the use of AT commands. We demonstrate that the AT command interface contains an alarming amount of unconstrained functionality and represents a broad attack surface on Android devices.",

author = "Dave Tian and Grant Hernandez and Choi, \{Joseph I.\} and Vanessa Frost and Christie Ruales and Patrick Traynor and Hayawardh Vijayakumar and Lee Harrison and Amir Rahmati and Michael Grace and Butler, \{Kevin R.B.\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium. All rights reserved.; 27th USENIX Security Symposium ; Conference date: 15-08-2018 Through 17-08-2018",

year = "2018",

language = "English",

series = "Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium",

publisher = "USENIX Association",

pages = "273--290",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium",

}

Tian, D, Hernandez, G, Choi, JI, Frost, V, Ruales, C, Traynor, P, Vijayakumar, H, Harrison, L, Rahmati, A, Grace, M & Butler, KRB 2018, Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem. in Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium. Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Association, pp. 273-290, 27th USENIX Security Symposium, Baltimore, United States, 08/15/18.

Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem. / Tian, Dave; Hernandez, Grant; Choi, Joseph I. et al.
Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium. USENIX Association, 2018. p. 273-290 (Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Attention Spanned

T2 - 27th USENIX Security Symposium

AU - Tian, Dave

AU - Hernandez, Grant

AU - Choi, Joseph I.

AU - Frost, Vanessa

AU - Ruales, Christie

AU - Traynor, Patrick

AU - Vijayakumar, Hayawardh

AU - Harrison, Lee

AU - Rahmati, Amir

AU - Grace, Michael

AU - Butler, Kevin R.B.

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - AT commands, originally designed in the early 80s for controlling modems, are still in use in most modern smartphones to support telephony functions. The role of AT commands in these devices has vastly expanded through vendor-specific customizations, yet the extent of their functionality is unclear and poorly documented. In this paper, we systematically retrieve and extract 3,500 AT commands from over 2,000 Android smartphone firmware images across 11 vendors. We methodically test our corpus of AT commands against eight Android devices from four different vendors through their USB interface and characterize the powerful functionality exposed, including the ability to rewrite device firmware, bypass Android security mechanisms, exfiltrate sensitive device information, perform screen unlocks, and inject touch events solely through the use of AT commands. We demonstrate that the AT command interface contains an alarming amount of unconstrained functionality and represents a broad attack surface on Android devices.

AB - AT commands, originally designed in the early 80s for controlling modems, are still in use in most modern smartphones to support telephony functions. The role of AT commands in these devices has vastly expanded through vendor-specific customizations, yet the extent of their functionality is unclear and poorly documented. In this paper, we systematically retrieve and extract 3,500 AT commands from over 2,000 Android smartphone firmware images across 11 vendors. We methodically test our corpus of AT commands against eight Android devices from four different vendors through their USB interface and characterize the powerful functionality exposed, including the ability to rewrite device firmware, bypass Android security mechanisms, exfiltrate sensitive device information, perform screen unlocks, and inject touch events solely through the use of AT commands. We demonstrate that the AT command interface contains an alarming amount of unconstrained functionality and represents a broad attack surface on Android devices.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85050933933

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85050933933

T3 - Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium

SP - 273

EP - 290

BT - Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium

PB - USENIX Association

Y2 - 15 August 2018 through 17 August 2018

ER -

Attention Spanned: Comprehensive vulnerability analysis of at commands within the android ecosystem

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this