CVE-2020-11166
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability allows an attacker to cause an out-of-bounds read exception by sending specially crafted ROHC headers with excessive padding to affected Qualcomm Snapdragon devices. Successful exploitation could lead to denial of service or potential information disclosure. Affected products include Snapdragon Auto, Compute, Connectivity, Consumer IoT, Industrial IoT, IoT, Mobile, Voice & Music, and Wearables platforms.
💻 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 leading to complete device compromise, data exfiltration, or persistent backdoor installation.
Likely Case
Denial of service causing device crashes or reboots, potentially with information disclosure through memory leaks.
If Mitigated
Limited impact with proper network segmentation and intrusion detection, potentially only causing temporary service disruption.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires sending specially crafted network packets to vulnerable devices. No public exploit code is known, but the vulnerability is remotely exploitable without authentication.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: March 2021 security updates and later
Vendor Advisory: https://www.qualcomm.com/company/product-security/bulletins/march-2021-bulletin
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Check device manufacturer for available firmware updates. 2. Apply March 2021 or later security patches from device OEM. 3. For embedded systems, contact Qualcomm for updated drivers/firmware. 4. Reboot device after update.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Network filtering
linuxBlock or filter ROHC traffic at network perimeter
iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 554 -j DROP # Example ROHC port
Disable ROHC if unused
linuxDisable Robust Header Compression feature if not required
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/rohc_enabled # Example path, varies by device
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Segment affected devices in isolated network zones with strict firewall rules
- Implement network intrusion detection to monitor for anomalous ROHC traffic patterns
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check device firmware version against Qualcomm's March 2021 security bulletin. For Android: Settings > About phone > Android security patch level (should be March 2021 or later).Check Version:
For Android: adb shell getprop ro.build.version.security_patchVerify Fix Applied:
Verify security patch level is March 2021 or later. Check with device manufacturer for specific firmware version that includes the fix.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Kernel panic logs
- System crash dumps
- Unexpected process termination related to network stack
Network Indicators:
- Unusually large ROHC packets
- Excessive padding in ROHC headers
- Traffic to ROHC ports (typically UDP 554)
SIEM Query:
source="network" AND (protocol="ROHC" OR port=554) AND packet_size>threshold