MCUboot Injection attack of unprotected TLV values
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- Low · High · High
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
MCUboot is a secure bootloader for 32-bits microcontrollers. MCUboot uses a TLV (tag-length-value) structure to represent the meta data associated with an image. The TLVs themselves are divided into two sections, a protected and an unprotected section. The protected TLV entries are included as part of the image signature to avoid tampering. However, the code does not distinguish which TLV entries should be protected or not, so it is possible for an attacker to add unprotected TLV entries that should be protected. Currently, the primary protected TLV entries should be the dependency indication, and the boot record. An injected dependency value would primarily result in an otherwise acceptable image being rejected. A boot record injection could allow fields in a later attestation record to include data not intended, which could cause an image to appear to have properties that it should not have. As a workaround, disable the boot record functionality.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2024-32883
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences