CVE-2024-47149

Executive Summary

CVE-2024-47149 is a vulnerability affecting certain Honor products, characterized by incorrect privilege assignment. This flaw could allow a local attacker with low privileges to cause device service exceptions, potentially leading to a denial of service or other unspecified impacts. The vulnerability has a low CVSS score of 3.3, indicating limited severity, but the lack of a patch and public exploit details raises concerns for targeted attacks. The EPSS score of 0.0% suggests low exploitation likelihood in the wild, but the absence of a patch means affected devices remain vulnerable.

Supply Chain & Package Security

This vulnerability is not related to NPM, PyPI, Go, or Ruby packages. It is a firmware-level issue in Honor devices, likely affecting the Android-based operating system or proprietary services.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

• CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
• Base Score: 3.3 (Low)
• Attack Vector: Local (AV:L) – requires physical or local network access to the device.
• Attack Complexity: Low (AC:L) – no special conditions required.
• Privileges Required: Low (PR:L) – attacker needs a low-privileged account or app.
• User Interaction: None (UI:N) – no user action needed.
• Scope: Unchanged (S:U) – vulnerability does not affect other components.
• Confidentiality Impact: None (C:N) – no data exposure.
• Integrity Impact: Low (I:L) – possible modification of device services.
• Availability Impact: None (A:N) – no direct denial of service.

Threat Level: Low. The vulnerability requires local access and low privileges, limiting remote exploitation. However, if combined with other vulnerabilities, it could be part of a privilege escalation chain.

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The vulnerability stems from incorrect privilege assignment (CWE-266) in Honor device firmware. This likely involves a service or daemon running with elevated privileges that incorrectly grants permissions to low-privileged processes. For example, a system service might expose an interface that allows a user-level app to invoke functions that should be restricted to system-level processes.

Technical Details:

• The flaw is in the privilege management logic of a specific Honor service (e.g., honor_service or system_server).
• A low-privileged app can send crafted IPC (Inter-Process Communication) messages to this service.
• The service fails to validate the caller's privileges, executing the request with its own elevated privileges.
• This could lead to service exceptions, such as crashing the service or altering its behavior.

Attack Scenario:

1. Attacker installs a malicious app on the Honor device.
2. The app sends a specially crafted intent or binder transaction to the vulnerable service.
3. The service processes the request with elevated privileges, causing an exception (e.g., null pointer dereference, buffer overflow).
4. The service crashes or enters an unstable state, potentially affecting other device functions.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

Since no patch is available, we can only hypothesize the vulnerable code pattern. A typical example in Android services:

Vulnerable Code (Java/Kotlin):

// Vulnerable service method
public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
    switch (msg.what) {
        case MSG_CRITICAL_ACTION:
            // No privilege check
            performCriticalAction(msg.obj);
            break;
    }
}

Patched Code (Hypothetical):

// Patched service method
public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
    switch (msg.what) {
        case MSG_CRITICAL_ACTION:
            // Check caller's UID
            if (Binder.getCallingUid() != Process.SYSTEM_UID) {
                throw new SecurityException("Caller not allowed");
            }
            performCriticalAction(msg.obj);
            break;
    }
}

The patch would add a privilege check using Binder.getCallingUid() or similar mechanism to ensure only authorized processes can invoke sensitive operations.

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team

Prerequisites:

• Honor device with vulnerable firmware (e.g., specific model like Honor 50, Magic series).
• ADB (Android Debug Bridge) access or ability to install a malicious APK.
• Knowledge of the vulnerable service's interface (e.g., via reverse engineering).

Exploitation Steps:

1. Identify Vulnerable Service: Use dumpsys or ps to list running services. Look for Honor-specific services.
2. Reverse Engineer Service: Decompile the service APK (e.g., /system/priv-app/HonorService/HonorService.apk) using jadx or apktool.
3. Craft Exploit App: Create an Android app that sends an intent or binder transaction to the vulnerable service.

   // Exploit snippet
   Intent intent = new Intent();
   intent.setComponent(new ComponentName("com.honor.service", "com.honor.service.VulnerableService"));
   intent.putExtra("action", "CRITICAL_ACTION");
   startService(intent);
   

4. Trigger Exception: The service may crash or throw an exception, observable via logcat.

Expected Outcome: Service crash or exception, potentially causing device instability.

Blue Team

Detection:

• Monitor logcat for exceptions from Honor services:

  adb logcat | grep -E "HonorService|Exception|FATAL"
  

• Use Android's dumpsys to check service health:

  adb shell dumpsys activity services | grep -A 10 "com.honor.service"
  

Mitigation:

• Restrict installation of apps from unknown sources.
• Use Android Enterprise or MDM to enforce least privilege.
• Monitor for unusual service crashes or restarts.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• Log Entries: Repeated exceptions in logcat from com.honor.service or similar.
• Process Anomalies: Unexpected crashes of system services (e.g., system_server).
• File Artifacts: Presence of suspicious APK files in /data/app/ with unusual permissions.
• Network: No network IOCs expected as this is a local vulnerability.

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2024_47149_Honor_Privilege_Escalation {
    meta:
        description = "Detects potential exploitation of CVE-2024-47149 in Honor devices"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-10"
        reference = "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-47149"
    strings:
        $s1 = "com.honor.service" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "CRITICAL_ACTION" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "performCriticalAction" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        any of ($s*) and filesize < 10MB
}

Sigma Rule

title: CVE-2024-47149 Honor Privilege Escalation Attempt
id: 12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012
status: experimental
description: Detects log entries indicating exploitation of CVE-2024-47149
author: Valters IT
date: 2025-04-10
logsource:
    product: android
    service: logcat
detection:
    selection:
        - "Exception" and "com.honor.service"
        - "FATAL" and "HonorService"
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate service crashes due to bugs
level: medium

Suricata Rule

alert ip any any -> any any (msg:"CVE-2024-47149 Honor Privilege Escalation Attempt"; content:"com.honor.service"; content:"CRITICAL_ACTION"; classtype:attempted-admin; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Apply Vendor Patch: Check Honor's official support page for firmware updates. If unavailable, contact Honor support.
2. Restrict App Installation: Disable installation from unknown sources in device settings.
3. Monitor Device Logs: Regularly check logcat for unusual service exceptions.

Long-Term Mitigation:

• Use Android Enterprise: Enforce device policies that restrict app permissions.
• Implement Least Privilege: Ensure apps run with minimal necessary permissions.
• Network Segmentation: Isolate IoT devices from critical networks.

Workarounds:

• If no patch is available, consider using a third-party security solution (e.g., mobile threat defense) to detect anomalous behavior.

Valters IT