CVE-2020-14372

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2020-14372  

A flaw was found in GRUB 2, where it incorrectly enables the usage of the ACPI command when Secure Boot is enabled. This flaw allows an attacker with privileged access to craft a Secondary System Description Table (SSDT) containing code to overwrite the Linux kernel lockdown variable content directly into memory. The table is further loaded and executed by the kernel, defeating its Secure Boot lockdown and allowing the attacker to load unsigned code. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity, as well as system availability.

Description

A flaw was found in GRUB 2, where it incorrectly enables the usage of the ACPI command when Secure Boot is enabled. This flaw allows an attacker with privileged access to craft a Secondary System Description Table (SSDT) containing code to overwrite the Linux kernel lockdown variable content directly into memory. The table is further loaded and executed by the kernel, defeating its Secure Boot lockdown and allowing the attacker to load unsigned code. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity, as well as system availability.

Statement

For a successful attack to occur, the attacker needs to triage the environment to determine where the lockdown variable symbol is placed into memory when the kernel is loaded, and then the SSDT table needs to be written accordingly into this memory position and the grub.cfg file needs to be changed to load the table during the boot time.

For a successful attack to occur, the attacker needs to triage the environment to determine where the lockdown variable symbol is placed into memory when the kernel is loaded, and then the SSDT table needs to be written accordingly into this memory position and the grub.cfg file needs to be changed to load the table during the boot time.

Additional Information

  • Bugzilla 1873150: CVE-2020-14372 grub2: acpi command allows privileged user to load crafted ACPI tables when Secure Boot is enabled
  • CWE-184: Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs
  • FAQ: Frequently asked questions about CVE-2020-14372