Glitched on Earth by Humans: A Black-Box Security Evaluation of the SpaceX Starlink User Terminal

Security

Here is the meta description: Security researchers uncover a vulnerability in the SpaceX Starlink user terminal's secure boot process, exploiting a glitch to bypass verification and gain root access to the system.

Key takeaways

The ROM bootloader verifies the root of trust public key to ensure the secure boot process.
The dish user terminal lacks documentation and open development samples, making it difficult to conduct white-box attacks.
The attack vector is voltage fault injection, which can be used to bypass the secure boot process.
The attacker can load the certificate and then inject a glitch to manipulate the signature verification process.
The glitch can be triggered on an EMMC data zero line, allowing the attacker to skip certain functions.
The attack can be performed on the Raspberry Pi microcontroller, making it possible to create a standalone mod chip.
The user terminal is vulnerable to glitches, as cutting off the decoupling capacitors can create an amplification effect.
The secure element on the system-on-chip (SoC) is used for secure boot and firmware authentication.
A black-box attack was demonstrated using a custom-built quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC.
The attacker can gain access to the network infrastructure by exploiting the user terminal vulnerability.
The attack can be made more scalable by finding software vulnerabilities in the firmware.
The dish user terminal prints “development log in enabled” when a glitch is successful, allowing the attacker to control the system.
The secure boot process is implemented using U-boot, but the input is set to null def, making it vulnerable to glitches.
The glitch can be triggered using a logic analyzer and a Raspberry Pi microcontroller overclocked to 250 MHz.
The attack is not deterministic and may take several attempts to succeed.
The attacker can gain a root shell on the device by glitching the reset line.
The secure element on the SoC implements ARM trust firmware, which includes a ROM bootloader and some trusted firmware boot stages.
The system-on-chip (SoC) has a custom quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU.
The attacker can access more of the network infrastructure by exploiting the user terminal vulnerability.
The dish user terminal lacks obvious low-hanging fruit for exploitation, making it a challenging target.

Glitched on Earth by Humans: A Black-Box Security Evaluation of the SpaceX Starlink User Terminal

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