Versal Adaptive SoC – Secure Boot Bypass via Board Modifications and Crafted Boot Image

Summary

On Versal Adaptive SoC devices, USB boot mode is supported as an AMD-internal, test-only boot mode. USB boot mode is a slave boot mode that allows a host to download a boot image to a Versal device over USB using the DFU protocol.

USB boot mode can be enabled via non-trivial board modifications. When enabled on certain Versal devices, crafted images can overflow a buffer and overwrite an active function pointer, resulting in arbitrary code execution during boot.

AMD has a device-level mitigation that can be applied in some circumstances when the attack applies to a system. The device-level mitigation uses the built-in self repair and halt on boot error functionalities to effectively disable the USB boot mode.

Figure 2 can be used to determine whether the device is eligible for the AMD device-level mitigation.

Both USB_Vulnerability_Mitigation_Guide.pptx and usb_vuln_mitigation.zip can be used to:

1. Determine whether a device’s eFUSEs support the device-level mitigation
2. Apply the device-level mitigation to a device whose eFUSEs support it
3. Configure an application to run on a device with the device-level mitigation in place
4. Determine system-level mitigations when device-level mitigation is not possible

For access to these items, please contact your AMD FAE.

Acknowledgement 

This issue was discovered internally by AMD.

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