Insecure Input Validation in ESP-IDF Bootloader Allows Arbitrary Code Execution

CVE-2018-18558 · MEDIUM Severity

AV:L/AC:M/AU:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

An issue was discovered in Espressif ESP-IDF 2.x and 3.x before 3.0.6 and 3.1.x before 3.1.1. Insufficient validation of input data in the 2nd stage bootloader allows a physically proximate attacker to bypass secure boot checks and execute arbitrary code, by crafting an application binary that overwrites a bootloader code segment in process_segment in components/bootloader_support/src/esp_image_format.c. The attack is effective when the flash encryption feature is not enabled, or if the attacker finds a different vulnerability that allows them to write this binary to flash memory.

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