It's Bugs All the Way Down

Security Research by Dan Rosenberg

Motorola Bootloader Unlocking

  April 8th, 2013

I recently unlocked the bootloader for the consumer editions of Motorola Android devices using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. This includes the Razr HD, Razr Maxx HD, Razr M, and Atrix HD models. The details of this research have been published on Azimuth Security’s blog.

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A Linux Memory Trick

  February 6th, 2013

I discovered a neat little trick on Linux: on x86 (and a few other less common architectures), it’s possible to determine from an unprivileged process whether an address residing within the kernel address space is mapped or unmapped.

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Rooting the LG Thrill / Optimus 3D

  February 26th, 2012

Another silly file permissions bug. At least the exploitation of this one was a little bit more interesting.

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Rooting the LG Spectrum

  February 19th, 2012

Yawn. LG loses, users win.
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Xoom FE: Stupid Bugs, and More Plagiarism

  February 18th, 2012

Someone mentioned to me that yesterday’s root for the Motorola XYBoard appeared to not work on the Xoom Family Edition (FE), so I took a look. What I found was a set of vulnerabilities so egregious that it’s hard to not draw comparisons to a deliberate backdoor.

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Rooting the XYBoard/Xoom 2

  February 17th, 2012

Another day, another tablet rooted. I wonder when Motorola will realize that it’s hopeless to try to prevent device owners from controlling their own hardware.
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Re-Rooting the LG Esteem

  February 15th, 2012

Someone told me that LG patched the last vulnerability used to root the LG Esteem. Here’s another root.
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Rooting the Droid 4: A Failed Bounty Experiment

  February 11th, 2012

Yesterday, I tried a little experiment in releasing a root exploit for the Motorola Droid 4. I set up a bounty, where the first $200 would go towards me buying myself a Droid 4 in exchange for the work I’ve done developing the exploit, and the remaining bounty money would go directly to the American Red Cross. I thought this would be a good arrangement for everyone: users get a shiny root exploit for a few bucks, I get a new phone in payment, and money gets donated to charity. Everybody wins.
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Rooting the Sony Tablet S

  February 8th, 2012

After getting a taste of rooting tablets with the Lenovo Thinkpad tablet, I decided to turn my attention to the Sony Tablet S. It turned out to be a tough device to root.

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Rooting the Thinkpad Tablet

  January 22nd, 2012

Another day, another Android root. Let’s just skip the details this time and let Lenovo figure it out for themselves. The following root package only works on Windows. I feel like a Linux traitor right now, but 99% of the people using this run Windows, and if you run Linux, just peek at the batch script and perform the steps manually.

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