Rich Cannings <richc@google.com> Alex Stamos <alex@isecpartners.com> Overview Why care about mobile security? What is Android? How do I develop on Android? o Android Market What about Security? o Cornerstones of Android security Prevention Minimization Detection Reaction Overview Why care about mobile security? What is Android? How do I develop on Android? o Android Market What about Security? o Cornerstones of Android security Prevention Minimization Detection Reaction Some Statistics 6.77 billion people[1] 1.48 billion Internet enabled PCs[2] 4.10 billion mobile phones[1] Mobile phone replacement rate o 12-18 month average[3] o 1.1 billion mobile phones are purchased per year[4] o 13.5% of mobile phone sales are smartphones[5] The number of smartphones will soon compare with the number of Internet enabled PCs [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use (based on The World Factbook) [2] http://www.itu.int/ITU- D/icteye/Reporting/ShowReportFrame.aspx?ReportName=/WTI/InformationTechnologyPublic&RP_intYear=2008&RP_intLanguageID=1 [3] [4] http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2009/2h08-mobile-wifi-phones-market-research-highlights.asp [5] http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=985912
Mobile Security is Getting Interesting Techniques for desktop analysis are more useful to smart phones
Mobile networks can now be easily manipulated o From phones: Miller, Lackey, Miras at BlackHat 2009 o From false base stations: http://openbts.sourceforge.net/ Mobile Security Matures We are now seeing attacks against all layers of mobile infrastructure:
Applications Platform OS Baseband Network
Mobile Security Matures We are now seeing attacks against all layers of mobile infrastructure:
Applications Platform OS Baseband Network
Mobile devices must be treated as fully fledged computers.
Do not assume they are "special". Overview Why care about mobile security? What is Android? How do I develop on Android? o Android Market What about Security? o Cornerstones of Android security Prevention Minimization Detection Reaction Free, open source mobile platform o Source code at http://source.android.com Any handset manufacturer or hobbyist can install Any developer can use o SDK at http://developer.android.com Empower users and developers The Android Platform The Android Technology Stack Linux kernel Relies upon 90+ open source libraries o Integrated WebKit based browser o SQLite for structured data storage o OpenSSL o BouncyCastle o libc based on OpenBSD o Apache Harmony o Apache HttpClient Supports common sound, video and image codecs API support for handset I/O o Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, wifi o Camera, Video, GPS, compass, accelerometer, sound, vibrator Overview Why care about mobile security? What is Android? How do I develop on Android? o Android Market What about Security? o Cornerstones of Android security Prevention Minimization Detection Reaction Android Development Java applications are composed of: o Activities Visual user interface for one focused endeavor Android Development Java applications are composed of: o Activities Visual user interface for one focused endeavor o Services Runs in the background for an indefinite period of time Android Development Java applications are composed of: o Activities Visual user interface for one focused endeavor o Services Runs in the background for an indefinite period of time Intents o Asynchronous messaging o URL dispatching on steroids o Glues many Activities and Services together to make an application o Provides interactivity between applications Example Email Application Application Lifecycle Designed to protect battery life Application Lifecycle Designed to protect battery life Activities live on a stack Application Lifecycle Designed to protect battery life Activities live on a stack Application Lifecycle Designed to protect battery life Activities live on a stack Background activities can be killed at any moment Application Lifecycle Designed to protect battery life Activities live on a stack Background activities can be killed at any moment The platform makes it easy for developers to code applications that are killed at any moment without losing state o Helps with DoS issues Android Market Connects developers with users Darwinian environment o Good applications excel o Bad applications forgotten ~10,000 applications on Market Balance of openness and security o Not the only way to install apps o Not a walled garden Developers self-sign applications o For updating o Uses Java's keytool and jarsigner
Application Signing Why self signing? Market ties identity to developer account CAs have had major problems with fidelity in the past No applications are trusted. No "magic key"
What does signing determine? Shared UID for shared keys Self-updates
Overview Why care about mobile security? What is Android? How do I develop on Android? o Android Market What about Security? o Cornerstones of Android security Prevention Minimization Detection Reaction Security Philosophy Finite time and resources Humans have difficulty understanding risk Safer to assume that o Most developers do not understand security o Most users do not understand security
Security philosophy cornerstones o Need to prevent security breaches from occurring o Need to minimize the impact of a security breach o Need to detect vulnerabilities and security breaches o Need to react to vulnerabilities and security breaches swiftly
Prevent 5 million new lines of code Uses almost 100 open source libraries Android is open source can't rely on obscurity Teamed up with security experts from o Google Security Team o iSEC Partners o n.runs Concentrated on high risk areas o Remote attacks o Media codecs o New/custom security features Low-effort/high-benefit features o ProPolice stack overflow protection o Heap protection in dlmalloc dlmalloc
Heap consolidation attack Allocation meta-data is stored in band Heap overflow can perform 2 arbitrary pointer overwrites To fix, check: o b->fd->bk == b o b->bk->fd == b WebKit Heap Overflow Minimize We cannot rely on prevention alone o Vulnerabilities happen Users will install malware Code will be buggy How can we minimize the impact of a security issue? My webmail cannot access my banking web app o Same origin policy Why can malware access my browser? my banking info? Extend the web security model to the OS Minimize Traditional operating system security o Host based o User separation Mobile OSes are for single users User separation is like a "same user policy" Run each application in its own UID is like a "same application policy" o Privilege separation Make privilege separation relatively transparent to the developer Application Sandbox Each application runs within its own UID and VM Default privilege separation model Instant security features o Resource sharing CPU, Memory o Data protection FS permissions o Authenticated IPC Unix domain sockets Place access controls close to the resource, not in the VM
Application Sandbox Place access controls close to the resource o Smaller perimeter easier to protect Default Linux applications have too much power Lock down user access for a "default" application Fully locked down applications limit innovation Relying on users making correct security decisions is tricky
Permissions Whitelist model 1.Allow minimal access by default 2.Allow for user accepted access to resources Ask users less questions Make questions more understandable 194 permissions o More granularity o Less understandability
More Privilege Separation Media codecs are very complex very insecure Won't find all the issues media libraries Banish OpenCore media library to a lesser privileged process o mediaserver Immediately paid off o Charlie Miller reported a vulnerability in our MP3 parsing o oCERT-2009-002 Detect A lesser-impact security issue is still a security issue Internal detection processes o Developer education o Code audits o Fuzzing o Honeypot Everyone wants security allow everyone to detect issues o Users o Developers o Security Researchers
External Reports Patrick McDaniel, William Enck, Machigar Ongtang o Applied formal methods to access SMS and Dialer Charlie Miller, John Hering o Outdated WebKit library with PCRE issue XDA Developers o Safe mode lock screen bypass Charlie Miller, Collin Mulliner o MP3, SMS fuzzing results Panasonic, Chris Palmer o Permission regression bugs
If you find a security issue, please email security@android.com User Reporting A User Report MemoryUp: mobile RAM optimizer o faster, more stable, more responsive, less waiting time o not quite React Autoupdaters are the best security tool since Diffie-Hellman Every modern operating system should be responsible for: o Automatically updating itself o Providing a central update system for third-party applications Android's Over-The-Air update system (OTA) o User interaction is optional o No additional computer or cable is required o Very high update rate Shared UID Regression Shared UID feature o Malware does not hurt computers, malware authors do o Two applications are signed can share UIDs o More interactivity Panasonic reported that shared UID was broken o If the user installs malware, then the attacker could share UIDs with an existing installed app, like the browser o Breaks Application Sandbox Update Process 2009-05-14 o Panasonic reported the issue o Patched the issue, wrote regression tests 2009-05-15 o Kicked off internal audit o Built and tested every flavour of Android o Coordinated a public response with the reporter, carriers, PR and oCERT 2009-05-21 o Received critical-mass approval 2009-05-22 o OTAed users, rolled out patches to factories, SDK, and open source o Released advisory (oCERT-2009-006) Not over yet! 2009-07-06 o Completed audit and tests o Coordinated a public response with, carriers, PR and oCERT 2009-07-15 o Received critical-mass approval 2009-07-16 o OTAed users, rolled out patches to factories, SDK, and open source 2009-07-16 o Released advisory (oCERT-2009-011) Conclusion Security o an ongoing process o not a checkbox Process o Prevent o Minimize o Detect o React
Questions? Find a security issue? o Email security@android.com Want to contribute code? o Visit http://source.android.com o Add me as a code reviewer! Want to write an Android application? o Visit http://developer.android.com Want to email us? o Email richc@google.com or alex@isecpartners.com o We are both hiring