IOActive Lights Up Vulnerabilities for Over Half a Million Belkin WeMo Users

PRESS RELEASE

Seattle, USA — February 18, 2014 – IOActive, Inc., the leading global provider of specialist information security services, announced today that it has uncovered multiple vulnerabilities in Belkin WeMo Home Automation devices that could affect over half a million[1] users. Belkin’s WeMo uses Wi-Fi and the mobile Internet to control home electronics anywhere in the world directly from the users’ smartphone. Mike Davis, IOActive’s principal research scientist, uncovered multiple vulnerabilities in the WeMo product set that gives attackers the ability to: • Remotely control WeMo Home Automation attached devices over the Internet • Perform malicious firmware updates • Remotely monitor the devices (in some cases) • Access an internal home network Davis said, “As we connect our homes to the Internet, it is increasingly important for Internet-of-Things device vendors to ensure that reasonable security methodologies are adopted early in product development cycles. This mitigates their customer’s exposure and reduces risk. Another concern is that the WeMo devices use motion sensors, which can be used by an attacker to remotely monitor occupancy within the home.” The Impact The vulnerabilities found within the Belkin WeMo devices expose users to several potentially costly threats, from home fires[2] with possible tragic consequences down to the simple waste of electricity. The reason for this is that, after attackers compromise the WeMo devices, they can be used to remotely turn attached devices on and off at any time. Given the number of WeMo devices in use, it is highly likely that many of the attached appliances and devices will be unattended, thus increasing the threat posed by these vulnerabilities. Additionally, once an attacker has established a connection to a WeMo device within a victims network; the device can be used as a foothold to attack other devices such as laptops, mobile phones, and attached network file storage. The Vulnerabilities The Belkin WeMo firmware images that are used to update the devices are signed with public key encryption to protect against unauthorised modifications. However, the signing key and password are leaked on the firmware that is already installed on the devices. This allows attackers to use the same signing key and password to sign their own malicious firmware and bypass security checks during the firmware update process. Additionally, Belkin WeMo devices do not validate Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates preventing them from validating communications with Belkin’s cloud service including the firmware update RSS feed. This allows attackers to use any SSL certificate to impersonate Belkin’s cloud services and push malicious firmware updates and capture credentials at the same time. Due to the cloud integration, the firmware update is pushed to the victim’s home regardless of which paired device receives the update notification or its physical location. The Internet communication infrastructure used to communicate Belkin WeMo devices is based on an abused protocol that was designed for use by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to bypass firewall or NAT restrictions. It does this in a way that compromises all WeMo devices security by creating a virtual WeMo darknet where all WeMo devices can be connected to directly; and, with some limited guessing of a ‘secret number’, controlled even without the firmware update attack. The Belkin WeMo server application programming interface (API) was also found to be vulnerable to an XML inclusion vulnerability, which would allow attackers to compromise all WeMo devices. Advisory IOActive feels very strongly about responsible disclosure and as such worked closely with CERT on the vulnerabilities that were discovered. CERT, which will be publishing its own advisory today, made several attempts to contact Belkin about the issues, however, Belkin was unresponsive. Due to Belkin not producing any fixes for the issues discussed, IOActive felt it important to release an advisory and recommends unplugging all devices from the affected WeMo products. IOActive Labs released its own advisory outlining the affected products, the impact, and the solution. At IOAsis, which is being held alongside the RSA Conference next week, IOActive experts will be on hand to discuss best practices on how users and manufacturers can better protect themselves against these types of vulnerabilities. [1] Belkin WeMo app download data collected from XYO http://xyo.net/iphone-app/wemo-J1QNimE/ (iOS) and http://xyo.net/android-app/wemo-JJUZgf8/ (Android) [2] Home Fires http://www.ready.gov/home-fires and https://www.gov.uk/firekills About IOActive IOActive is a comprehensive, high-end information security services firm with a long and established track record in delivering elite security services to its customers. Our world-renowned consulting and research teams deliver a portfolio of specialist security services ranging from penetration testing and application code assessment through to semiconductor reverse engineering. Global 500 companies across every industry continue to trust IOActive with their most critical and sensitive security issues. Founded in 1998, IOActive is headquartered in Seattle, USA, with global operations through the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pac regions. Visit www.ioactive.com for more information. Read the IOActive Labs Research Blog: http://blog.ioactive.com/. Follow IOActive on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ioactive. ###

Craig Brophy Global Public Relations Manager IOActive, Inc. M: +44.779.566.2888 T: +1.206.462.2291 T: @CraigBrophy