CVE-2019-10590
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2019-10590 is a critical memory corruption vulnerability in Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets where parsing a malformed DTS atom with invalid track counts causes out-of-bounds memory access. This allows attackers to potentially execute arbitrary code or cause denial of service. It affects numerous Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms across automotive, mobile, IoT, and compute devices.
💻 Affected Systems
- Snapdragon Auto
- Snapdragon Compute
- Snapdragon Connectivity
- Snapdragon Consumer IOT
- Snapdragon Industrial IOT
- Snapdragon IoT
- Snapdragon Mobile
- Snapdragon Voice & Music
- Snapdragon Wearables
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Remote code execution with kernel privileges leading to complete device compromise, data theft, and persistent backdoor installation.
Likely Case
Device crash/reboot (denial of service) or limited information disclosure from memory corruption.
If Mitigated
Controlled crash without code execution if memory protections are enabled, but still causes service disruption.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires crafting malicious DTS media files, but no public exploit code is known. The vulnerability is in media parsing code that typically processes untrusted input.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: February 2020 security patch level or later
Vendor Advisory: https://www.qualcomm.com/company/product-security/bulletins/february-2020-bulletin
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Check device manufacturer for firmware updates. 2. Apply February 2020 or later security patches. 3. For Android devices: Settings > System > System Update. 4. For embedded systems: Update chipset firmware from vendor.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable DTS media processing
allBlock or filter DTS media files at network/application level to prevent parsing
Application sandboxing
linuxRun media processing in restricted containers/sandboxes to limit impact
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Network segmentation: Isolate affected devices from untrusted networks
- Input validation: Implement strict media file validation before processing
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check device firmware version and security patch level. For Android: Settings > About phone > Android security patch level (must be before February 2020).Check Version:
Android: adb shell getprop ro.build.version.security_patchVerify Fix Applied:
Confirm security patch level is February 2020 or later. Check Qualcomm chipset firmware version against patched releases.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Media parser crashes
- Kernel panic logs
- Unexpected process termination in media services
Network Indicators:
- Unusual DTS file transfers to devices
- Traffic patterns suggesting media exploitation attempts
SIEM Query:
source="*kernel*" AND ("panic" OR "oops") AND "media" OR source="*android*" AND "MediaPlayer" AND "crash"