Presented at
Black Hat USA 2016,
Aug. 4, 2016, 11 a.m.
(50 minutes).
The secure enclave processor (SEP) was introduced by Apple as part of the A7 SOC with the release of the iPhone 5S, most notably to support their fingerprint technology, Touch ID. SEP is designed as a security circuit configured to perform secure services for the rest of the SOC, with with no direct access from the main processor. In fact, the secure enclave processor runs it own fully functional operating system - dubbed SEPOS - with its own kernel, drivers, services, and applications. This isolated hardware design prevents an attacker from easily recovering sensitive data (such as fingerprint information and cryptographic keys) from an otherwise fully compromised device.
Despite almost three years have passed since its inception, little is still known about the inner workings of the SEP and its applications. The lack of public scrutiny in this space has consequently led to a number of misconceptions and false claims about the SEP.
In this presentation, we aim to shed some light on the secure enclave processor and SEPOS. In particular, we look at the hardware design and boot process of the secure enclave processor, as well as the SEPOS architecture itself. We also detail how the iOS kernel and the SEP exchange data using an elaborate mailbox mechanism, and how this data is handled by SEPOS and relayed to its services and applications. Last, but not least, we evaluate the SEP attack surface and highlight some of the findings of our research, including potential attack vectors.
Presenters:
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Tarjei Mandt
- Azimuth Security
Tarjei Mandt (@kernelpool) is a senior security researcher at Azimuth Security. He holds a Master's degree in Information Security from GUC (Norway) and has spoken at security conferences such as Black Hat USA, CanSecWest, INFILTRATE, RECon, SyScan, and Hack in the Box. In his free time, he enjoys spending countless hours challenging security mechanisms and researching intricate issues in low-level system components. Previously, he has discovered several Windows kernel vulnerabilities, and spoken on topics such as kernel pool exploitation and user-mode callback attacks. More recently, he has focused on Apple technology and presented on various security flaws and weaknesses in Mac OS X and iOS.
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Mathew Solnik
- OffCell Research
Mathew Solnik is senior security researcher who's primary focus is in the mobile, M2M, and embedded space specializing in cellular network, hardware/baseband, and OS security research/exploit development. Prior to doing full time research, Mathew was a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Appthority, Inc. where he helped design and build an automated mobile threat and malware analysis platform for use in the enterprise and defense space. Previous to Appthority, Mathew has held positions in multiple areas of IT and security - including consulting for Accuvant, and iSEC Partners where he performed the first Over-the-Air Car Hack (as was featured in a previous Black Hat talk) as well as R&D for Ironkey where he handled in-house penetration testing and design review for multiple DARPA funded projects.
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David Wang
- Azimuth Security
David Wang (@planetbeing) is a senior security researcher with Azimuth Security specializing in iOS exploitation. Before joining the Azimuth team, he was a member of the evad3rs iOS jailbreak team. With the evad3rs, David was nominated for a Pwnie for Best Privilege Escalation in 2013 and 2014, winning in 2013. David was also recognized by Forbes' 30 Under 30 in the technology category in 2014 for his work in iOS exploitation. Other notable contributions: David ported Android to iPhone in 2010; he was a member of the iPhone Dev Team where he wrote significant parts of several jailbreaks and baseband exploits; and he has spoken at Hack in the Box, Chaos Communications Conference, and XCon Xfocus.
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