AutoFirm: Automatically Identifying Reused Libraries inside IoT Firmware at Large-Scale

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chen, YongLe, Ma, Feng, Zhang, Ying, He, YongZhong, Wang, Haining, Li, Qiang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Chen, YongLe
Ma, Feng
Zhang, Ying
He, YongZhong
Wang, Haining
Li, Qiang
author_facet Chen, YongLe
Ma, Feng
Zhang, Ying
He, YongZhong
Wang, Haining
Li, Qiang
contents The Internet of Things (IoT) has become indispensable to our daily lives and work. Unfortunately, developers often reuse software libraries in the IoT firmware, leading to a major security concern. If vulnerabilities or insecure versions of these libraries go unpatched, a massive number of IoT devices can be impacted. In this paper, we propose the AutoFirm, an automated tool for detecting reused libraries in IoT firmware at a large scale. Specifically, AutoFirm leverages the syntax information (library name and version) to determine whether IoT firmware reuses the libraries. We conduct a large-scale empirical study of reused libraries of IoT firmware, investigating more than 6,900+ firmware and 2,700+ distinct vulnerabilities affecting 11,300+ vulnerable versions from 349 open-source software libraries. Leveraging this diverse information set, we conduct a qualitative assessment of vulnerable library versions to understand security gaps and the misplaced trust of libraries in IoT firmware. Our research reveals that: manufacturers neglected to update outdated libraries for IoT firmware in 67.3\% of cases; on average, outdated libraries persisted for over 1.34 years prior to remediation; vulnerabilities of software libraries have posed server threats to widespread IoT devices.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_12947
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AutoFirm: Automatically Identifying Reused Libraries inside IoT Firmware at Large-Scale
Chen, YongLe
Ma, Feng
Zhang, Ying
He, YongZhong
Wang, Haining
Li, Qiang
Cryptography and Security
Software Engineering
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become indispensable to our daily lives and work. Unfortunately, developers often reuse software libraries in the IoT firmware, leading to a major security concern. If vulnerabilities or insecure versions of these libraries go unpatched, a massive number of IoT devices can be impacted. In this paper, we propose the AutoFirm, an automated tool for detecting reused libraries in IoT firmware at a large scale. Specifically, AutoFirm leverages the syntax information (library name and version) to determine whether IoT firmware reuses the libraries. We conduct a large-scale empirical study of reused libraries of IoT firmware, investigating more than 6,900+ firmware and 2,700+ distinct vulnerabilities affecting 11,300+ vulnerable versions from 349 open-source software libraries. Leveraging this diverse information set, we conduct a qualitative assessment of vulnerable library versions to understand security gaps and the misplaced trust of libraries in IoT firmware. Our research reveals that: manufacturers neglected to update outdated libraries for IoT firmware in 67.3\% of cases; on average, outdated libraries persisted for over 1.34 years prior to remediation; vulnerabilities of software libraries have posed server threats to widespread IoT devices.
title AutoFirm: Automatically Identifying Reused Libraries inside IoT Firmware at Large-Scale
topic Cryptography and Security
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12947