Bootkeeper: Validating software integrity properties on boot firmware images

Ronny Chevalier, Stefano Cristalli, Christophe Hauser, Yan Shoshitaishvili, Ruoyu Wang, Christopher Kruegel, Giovanni Vigna, Danilo Bruschi, Andrea Lanzi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Boot firmware, like UEFI-compliant firmware, has been the target of numerous attacks, giving the attacker control over the entire system while being undetected. The measured boot mechanism of a computer platform ensures its integrity by using cryptographic measurements to detect such attacks. This is typically performed by relying on a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Recent work, however, shows that vendors do not respect the specifications that have been devised to ensure the integrity of the firmware’s loading process. As a result, attackers may bypass such measurement mechanisms and successfully load a modified firmware image while remaining unnoticed. In this paper we introduce BootKeeper, a static analysis approach verifying a set of key security properties on boot firmware images before deployment, to ensure the integrity of the measured boot process. We evaluate BootKeeper against several attacks on common boot firmware implementations and demonstrate its applicability.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCODASPY 2019 - Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages315-325
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781450360999
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 13 2019
Event9th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy, CODASPY 2019 - Richardson, United States
Duration: Mar 25 2019Mar 27 2019

Publication series

NameCODASPY 2019 - Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy

Conference

Conference9th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy, CODASPY 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityRichardson
Period3/25/193/27/19

Keywords

  • Binary analysis
  • Firmware
  • SCRTM
  • TPM

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Software

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