There are potentially many ways a hacker can gain access to your network by exploiting vulnerable machines, servers, network devices, hardware devices, smartphones, web applications, software and so on. The use of smart devices have essentially made our lives sophisticated and easy, but these smart but not-so-secure devices when exploited lead to massive data breaches or ransomware attacks on the network without even cracking passwords.
On February 5 2020, Check Point experts revealed a high severity vulnerability affecting Philips Hue Smart Light Bulbs. This vulnerability can be exploited over the air from a distance of 100 meters and exploiting into a targeted WiFi network.
Insights
This newly discovered vulnerability is tracked down as CVE-2020-6007 which has a CVSS base score of 7.9. The vulnerability takes advantage of the ZigBee communication protocol used by Philips smart bulbs, which in turn leads to heap-based buffer overflow. ZigBee is a widely used wireless technology designed to let each device communicate with any other device on the network [1]. This protocol is used by many IoT devices including Amazon Echo, Samsung SmartThings, Belkin Emo and so on. Check Point has mentioned that the hacker can infiltrate a home or an organization's network by using a laptop and an antenna over a distance of 100 meters. Check Point has also confirmed that the heap based buffer overflow takes place in the “bridge” component which is responsible for handling remote commands that are sent to the smart bulbs over ZigBee protocol running on devices like Alexa Home Assistant which controls the smart bulbs.
Conclusion
Researchers chose not to release the PoC exploit for this vulnerability, so as to provide time for the affected Philips Hue clients for applying patches. However, researchers have published a video demonstrating the attack performed [3]. This vulnerability directly violates Confidentiality and Integrity of the CIA Triad. IoT devices are commonly considered as a boon to the new digitized era. But, such poor configurations in the firmware poses a critical security risk. The best way to tackle such issues is to immediately release patches for the vulnerability and alert the clients about the security flaw. Being transparent can only help to improve the company’s reputation.
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