Carel van Rooyen is a computer systems engineer. Prior to his role as security analyst and security researcher he spent years teaching web application development and network security principles.

Attacking Mongoose OS on Xtensa platforms

Mongoose OS, an open source operating system and framework for the rapid deployment of IoT projects is built on top of FreeRTOS and was initially released in 2015. Abusing buffer overflows, and other vulnerabilities, one could potentially attack implementations of Mongoose OS. In this talk, the issue under scrutiny is the security mechanisms integrated with the Mongoose OS on Xtensa platform systems. Our approach outlines first steps into exploitation techniques tailored to this special target environment. This talk aims at describing employed technologies, techniques, and the preliminary results, as well as considerations on the attack surfaces from OS to hardware and storage level. It also tries to encourage more research and tool development on this topic. We further aim to share knowledge about the exploitation of new platforms and the approaches taken. Further interpretation shows that overlooked security best practices from the past can again be exploited by future adversaries, and need to be guarded against in IoT environments.

Presentation’s Co-Presenter is Philipp Promeuschel, Security Analyst at Compass Security Schweiz AG.