Joel Eriksson & Panel: Kernel Wars

Kernel vulnerabilities are often deemed unexploitable or at least unlikely to be exploited reliably. Although it's true that kernel-mode exploitation often presents some new challenges for exploit developers, it still all boils down to ""creative debugging"" and knowledge about the target in question.

This talk intends to demystify kernel-mode exploitation by demonstrating the analysis and reliable exploitation of three different kernel vulnerabilities without public exploits. From a defenders point of view this could hopefully serve as an eye-opener, as it demonstrates the ineffectiveness of HIDS, NX, ASLR and other protective measures when the kernel itself is being exploited.

The entire process will be discussed, including how the vulnerabilities were found, how they were analyzed to determine if and how they can be reliably exploited and of course the exploits will be demonstrated in practice.

The vulnerabilities that will be discussed are:

- FreeBSD 802.11 Management Frame Integer Overflow
Found and exploited by Karl Janmar.
Advisory: http://www.signedness.org/advisories/sps-0x1.txt

- NetBSD Local Kernel Heap Overflow
Found by Christer ?berg, exploited by Christer ?berg and Joel Eriksson.

- Windows (2000 & XP) Local GDI Memory Overwrite
Found by Cesar Cerrudo, exploited by Joel Eriksson.
Advisory: http://projects.info-pull.com/mokb/MOKB-06-11-2006.html

More information about the vulnerabilities can be found at:
http://kernelwars.blogspot.com/