Book Image

Fuzzing Against the Machine

By : Antonio Nappa, Eduardo Blázquez
Book Image

Fuzzing Against the Machine

By: Antonio Nappa, Eduardo Blázquez

Overview of this book

Emulation and fuzzing are among the many techniques that can be used to improve cybersecurity; however, utilizing these efficiently can be tricky. Fuzzing Against the Machine is your hands-on guide to understanding how these powerful tools and techniques work. Using a variety of real-world use cases and practical examples, this book helps you grasp the fundamental concepts of fuzzing and emulation along with advanced vulnerability research, providing you with the tools and skills needed to find security flaws in your software. The book begins by introducing you to two open source fuzzer engines: QEMU, which allows you to run software for whatever architecture you can think of, and American fuzzy lop (AFL) and its improved version AFL++. You’ll learn to combine these powerful tools to create your own emulation and fuzzing environment and then use it to discover vulnerabilities in various systems, such as iOS, Android, and Samsung's Mobile Baseband software, Shannon. After reading the introductions and setting up your environment, you’ll be able to dive into whichever chapter you want, although the topics gradually become more advanced as the book progresses. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained the skills, knowledge, and practice required to find flaws in any firmware by emulating and fuzzing it with QEMU and several fuzzing engines.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Foundations
5
Part 2: Emulation and Fuzzing
9
Part 3: Advanced Concepts
15
Chapter 12: Conclusion and Final Remarks

Finally Here: iOS Full System Fuzzing

So far, we have explored QEMU internals, understood the basics of instrumenting the emulator, made it talk with American Fuzzy Lop (AFL), added a CPU (normally used in basebands) and some peripherals to an unknown firmware, and walked through project FirmWire, an emulator for Samsung and Mediatek basebands. Also, we have coped with OpenWrt, a very famous open source alternative firmware for routers.

Now, we have reached the most convoluted facet of IoT devices, smartphones. These devices have a very complex software stack and a plethora of sensors – GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and compasses, to name a few.

The upcoming chapters may be particularly difficult if you are not familiar with products by Apple or Google.

As a security researcher that, over the years, has worked with many platforms, I can tell from my experience that Apple software seems extremely intimidating because it requires an understanding of a significant amount...