Instagram bug opened a path for hackers to hijack app, turn smartphones into spies

guest · Sep 24, 2020

Instagram bug opened a path for hackers to hijack app, turn smartphones into spies
The RCE vulnerability, now patched, took nothing more than an image file to trigger
September 24, 2020
https://www.zdnet.com/article/insta...rs-to-hijack-app-turn-smartphones-into-spies/

Facebook has patched a critical vulnerability in Instagram that could lead to remote code execution and the hijack of smartphone cameras, microphones, and more.

Privately disclosed to Facebook, the owner of Instagram, by Check Point, the security flaw is described as "a critical vulnerability in Instagram's image processing."
Tracked as CVE-2020-1895 and issued a CVSS score of 7.8, Facebook's security advisory says the vulnerability is a heap overflow problem.

"A large heap overflow could occur in Instagram for Android when attempting to upload an image with specially crafted dimensions. This affects versions prior to 128.0.0.26.128," the advisory says.
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This could include accessing a device's phone contacts, location/GPS data, camera, and locally-stored files. On the Instagram app itself, the RCE vulnerability could also be used to intercept direct messages and read them; delete or post photos without permission, or change account settings.

"At the most basic level, the exploitation could be used to crash a user's Instagram app, denying them access to the app until they delete it from their device and re-install it, causing inconvenience and possible loss of data," Check Point added.

The write-up of the vulnerability was made six months after private disclosure to give the majority of handset users time to accept security updates and mitigate the risk of exploit.

"We've fixed the issue and haven't seen any evidence of abuse," Facebook said. "We're thankful for Check Point's help in keeping Instagram safe."
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guest · Sep 24, 2020

Instagram bug allowed crashing the app via image sent to device
September 24, 2020
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...ed-crashing-the-app-via-image-sent-to-device/

In a detailed technical report today, Gal Elbaz from Check Point highlights how custom implementation of third-party code in Instagram could have led to serious, remote code execution risks.
As Elbaz explains, triggering the vulnerability requires specifying a size larger than 2^32 bytes. In simpler terms, Check Point told BleepingComputer:

“Technically speaking, the issue itself was a buffer overflow and it is caused by sending a picture with a large size, while fooling the application into believing it’s much smaller. This causes an overwrite and let us do our magic” - Check Point
A possible scenario from an attacker with skills to exploit the glitch could be as follows:

Send a malicious image to the victim by email, WhatsApp, SMS, or any other messaging service

If the user saves image and opens the Instagram app, bug exploitation begins, giving the attacker full access to the target’s phone for remote takeover

Exploitation could also be used to crash the victim’s Instagram app continuously unless removed and reinstalled.

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Checkpoint: #InstaHack: how researchers were able to take over the Instagram App using a malicious image
Checkpoint Research: #Instagram_RCE: Code Execution Vulnerability in Instagram App for Android and iOS

Our blog post describes how image parsing code, as a third party library, ends up being the weakest point of Instagram’s large system.
Unfortunately, it is also likely that other bugs remain or will be introduced in the future.

This field has been researched a lot by various appreciated independent security researchers as well as nationally-sponsored security researchers. Media format parsing remains an important issue.
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Rasheed187 · Sep 26, 2020

The question remains, when will we get anti-exploit features on Android and iOS?

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Instagram bug opened a path for hackers to hijack app, turn smartphones into spies

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