Determining the Image Base of Smart Device Firmware for Security Analysis

Joint Authors

Zhang, Baofeng
Zhu, Ruijin
Tan, Yu-an
Wang, Jinmiao
Wan, Yueliang

Source

Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing

Issue

Vol. 2020, Issue 2020 (31 Dec. 2020), pp.1-12, 12 p.

Publisher

Hindawi Publishing Corporation

Publication Date

2020-12-28

Country of Publication

Egypt

No. of Pages

12

Main Subjects

Information Technology and Computer Science

Abstract EN

The authorization mechanism of smart devices is mainly implemented by firmware, yet many smart devices have security issues about their firmware.

Limited research has focused on securing the firmware of smart devices, although increasingly more smart devices are used to deal with the very sensitive applications, activities, and data of users.

Thus, research on smart device firmware security is of growing importance.

Disassembly is a common method for evaluating the security of authorization mechanisms.

When disassembling firmware, the processor type of the running environment and the image base of the firmware should first be determined.

In general, the processor type can be obtained by tearing down the device or consulting the product manual.

However, it is not easy to determine the image base of firmware.

Since the processors of many smart devices are ARM architectures, in this paper, we focus on firmware under the ARM architecture and propose an automated method for determining the image base.

By studying the storage law of the jump table in the firmware of ARM-based smart devices, we propose an algorithm, named determining the image base by searching jump tables (DBJT), to determine the image base.

The experimental results indicate that the proposed method can successfully determine the image base of firmware, which stores the absolute address in the jump table.

American Psychological Association (APA)

Zhu, Ruijin& Zhang, Baofeng& Tan, Yu-an& Wang, Jinmiao& Wan, Yueliang. 2020. Determining the Image Base of Smart Device Firmware for Security Analysis. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing،Vol. 2020, no. 2020, pp.1-12.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1214951

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Zhu, Ruijin…[et al.]. Determining the Image Base of Smart Device Firmware for Security Analysis. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing No. 2020 (2020), pp.1-12.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1214951

American Medical Association (AMA)

Zhu, Ruijin& Zhang, Baofeng& Tan, Yu-an& Wang, Jinmiao& Wan, Yueliang. Determining the Image Base of Smart Device Firmware for Security Analysis. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing. 2020. Vol. 2020, no. 2020, pp.1-12.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1214951

Data Type

Journal Articles

Language

English

Notes

Includes bibliographical references

Record ID

BIM-1214951