Several Broadcom/Cypress Bluetooth firmwares and their firmware update mechanism have been reverse engineered. Based on that we developed a Bluetooth experimentation framework which is able to patch the firmware and therefore implement monitoring and injection tools for the lower layers of the Bluetooth protocol stack.
The framework uses ADB (Android Debug Bridge) to connect to an Android smartphone, BlueZ sockets on Linux, or the included iOS Proxy on iOS.
For Android with ADB, either connect the phone via USB or setup ADB over TCP and make sure you enable USB debugging in the developer settings of Android.
If you have a jailbroken iOS device, you need to install a proxy that locally connects to the Bluetooth device and forwards HCI commands and events.
On Linux with BlueZ, everything should work out of the box, but you need to execute InternalBlue as root for most features.
The InternalBlue framework is written in Python 2. You can install it together with all dependencies by using pip:
git clone https://github.com/seemoo-lab/internalblue.git
cd internalblue
pip2 install .
It will install the following dependencies:
- pwntools
The pwntools module needs the binutils package for ARM 32-bit to be installed on the system. This has to be installed manually by using the packet manager of your Linux distribution:
# for Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S arm-none-eabi-binutils
# for Ubuntu
sudo apt install binutils-arm-linux-gnueabi
All steps on a plain Ubuntu 18.04:
sudo apt install git python-setuptools binutils-arm-linux-gnueabi adb pip python-dev gcc
git clone https://github.com/seemoo-lab/internalblue
cd internalblue
sudo pip2 install .
cd ..
sudo apt-get install wireshark-dev wireshark cmake
git clone https://github.com/seemoo-lab/h4bcm_wireshark_dissector
cd h4bcm_wireshark_dissector
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
make install
Packets required on a current (July 2019) Raspian:
sudo apt-get --allow-releaseinfo-change update
sudo apt-get install git python-setuptools binutils-arm-none-eabi adb python-pip python-dev gcc libffi-dev
The CLI (Command Line Interface) of InternalBlue can be started by running:
python2 -m internalblue.cli
The setup.py installation will also place a shortcut to the CLI into the $PATH so that it can be started from a command line using:
internalblue
It should automatically connect to your Android phone through ADB or your local Linux with BlueZ. With BlueZ, some commands can be sent by unprivileged users (i.e. version requests) and some commands require privileged users (i.e. establishing connections). Use the help command to display a list of available commands. A typical set of actions to check if everything is working properly would be:
wireshark start
connect ff:ff:13:37:ab:cd
sendlmp 01 -d 02
Note that InternalBlue only displays 4 byte MAC addresses in some places. This is because the leading two bytes are not required by Bluetooth communication, you can replace them with anything you want.
Android:
- Ideally recompiled
bluetooth.default.so
, but also works on any rooted smartphone, see Android instructions - Android device connected via ADB
- Best support is currently given for Nexus 5 / BCM4339 and Evaluation Boards
- Optional: Patch for Android driver to support Broadcom H4 forwarding
- Optional, if H4: Wireshark Broadcom H4 Dissector Plugin
Linux:
- BlueZ, instructions see here
- Best support for Raspberry Pi 3/3+/4
- For most commands: Privileged access
iOS:
- A jailbroken iOS device (tested on iOS 12.1.2 with iPhone 6+7)
- The included
ios-proxy
(instructions in here) - Optional: a Mac with
xcode
to compile the proxy yourself
This list is subject to change, but we give you a brief overview. You probably have a platform with a Broadcom chip that supports most features :)
On any Bluetooth chip:
- Send HCI commands
- Monitor HCI
- Establish connections
On any Broadcom Bluetooth chip:
- Read and write RAM
- Read and write assembly to RAM
- Read ROM
- Inject arbitrary valid LMP messages (opcode and length must me standard compliant, contents and order are arbitrary)
- Use diagnostic features to monitor LMP and LCP (with new Android H4 driver patch, still needs to be integrated into BlueZ)
- Read AFH channel map
On selected Broadcom Bluetooth chips:
- Write to ROM via Patchram (any chip with defined firmware file >= build date 2012)
- Interpret coredumps (Nexus 5/6P, Samsung Galaxy S6, Evaluation Boards, Samsung Galaxy S10/S10e/S10+)
- Debug firmware with tracepoints (Nexus 5 and Evaluation Board CYW20735)
- Fuzz invalid LMP messages (Nexus 5 and Evaluation Board CYW20735)
- Inject LCP messages, including invalid messages (Nexus 5, Raspberry Pi 3/3+/4)
- Full object and function symbol table (Cypress Evaluation Boards only)
- Demos for Nexus 5 only:
- ECDH CVE-2018-5383 example
- NiNo example
- MAC address filter example
A comprehensive list of chips and which devices have them can be found in the firmware module documentation.
-
Master Thesis (07/2018)
InternalBlue was initially developed and documented in the Masterthesis by Dennis Mantz. Afterwards the development was continued by SEEMOO. It was awarded with the CAST Förderpreis.
-
MRMCD Talk (09/2018)
The basic framework for Nexus 5 / BCM4339 was presented at the MRMCD Conference 2018 in Darmstadt. The talk was also recorded and includes an overview of the framework as well as two demo usages at the end (Following a Secure Simple Pairing procedure in Wireshark and implementing a proof of concept for CVE-2018-5383).
-
35C3 Talk (12/2018)
More extensions were presented at 35C3 2018 in Leipzig. New features include creating connections to non-discoverable devices. Moreover, we gave a demo of CVE-2018-19860, which can crash Bluetooth on several Broadcom chips. This talk was also recorded and gives a more high level overview.
-
TROOPERS Talk (03/2019)
-
WiSec Paper (05/2019)
Our WiSec paper Inside Job: Diagnosing Bluetooth Lower Layers Using Off-the-Shelf Devices on reversing the Broadcom Bluetooth diagnostics protocol was accepted, demonstrated and got the replicability label.
-
MobiSys Paper (06/2019)
Our MobiSys paper InternalBlue - Bluetooth Binary Patching and Experimentation Framework on the complete InternalBlue ecosystem got accepted.
-
REcon Talk (06/2019)
We gave a talk at REcon, Reversing and Exploiting Broadcom Bluetooth. It gives a first intuition on how to do binary patching in C with Nexmon to change Bluetooth functionality.
Copyright 2018-2019 Dennis Mantz, Jiska Classen
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