Bad Neighbor on FreeBSD: IPv6 Router Advertisement Vulnerabilities in rtsold (CVE-2020-25577)

This blog post provides details about four vulnerabilities we found in the IPv6 stack of FreeBSD, more specifically in rtsold(8), the router solicitation daemon. The bugs affected all supported versions of FreeBSD, and the most severe of them could allow an attacker attached to the same physical link to gain remote code execution as root on vulnerable systems. The vulnerabilities were discovered and reported to FreeBSD Security Team in November 2020. FreeBSD issued fixes for these bugs on December 1st, 2020 along with security advisory FreeBSD-SA-20:32.rtsold.

more ...

Technical Assessment of the herumi Libraries

The Ethereum Foundation mandated Quarkslab to perform an audit of the herumi libraries. They provide an API to perform BLS signatures, one of the core components of the new iteration of the Ethereum blockchain, named Ethereum 2.0. While reviewing the architecture of these libraries, their back ends and the adherence with the ongoing RFCs to standardize BLS signature usage, we found some issues primarily regarding their design. Although these are not considered critical, they impact the overall reliability of the libraries. We provide recommendations to improve the design of the libraries, the readability of the code and the usability of both projects.

more ...


How the MSVC Compiler Generates XFG Function Prototype Hashes

Microsoft is currently working on Xtended Flow Guard (XFG), an evolved version of Control Flow Guard (CFG), their own control flow integrity implementation. XFG works by restricting indirect control flow transfers based on type-based hashes of function prototypes. This blog post is a deep dive into how the MSVC compiler generates those XFG function prototype hashes.

more ...


Internships at Quarkslab 2020-2021: the COVID season

We LOVE interns! Really. We love them because they bring fresh air to the company and because we see them grow, not only during the internship but also after, when they are hired and can get to work on so many other topics. There are 2 goals for us in every internship we offer:

  • Explore a topic we don't necessarily know very well, hence train the new expert on the topic,

  • Hire you after the internship to keep and share your new expertise with colleagues.

more ...