Exchanging Demands: Weaknesses in SSL Implementations for Mobile Platforms

Authors

Peter Hannay, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Clinton Carpene, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Craig Valli, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Andrew Woodward, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Mike Johnstone, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publisher

SRI Security Research Institute, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia

Comments

11th Australian Information Security Management Conference, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, 2nd-4th December, 2013

Abstract

The ActiveSync protocol’s implementation on some embedded devices leaves clients vulnerable to unauthorised remote policy enforcement. This paper discusses a proof of concept attack against the implementation of ActiveSync in common Smart phones including Android devices and iOS devices. A two‐phase approach to exploiting the ActiveSync protocol is introduced. Phase 1 details the usage of a man‐in‐the‐middle attack to gain a vantage point over the client device, whilst Phase 2 involves spoofing the server‐side ActiveSync responses to initiate the unauthorised policy enforcement. These vulnerabilities are demonstrated by experiment, highlighting how the system can be exploited to perform a remote factory reset upon an Exchange‐integrated Smart phone.

DOI

10.4225/75/57b5646ccd8e3