blanket

Blanket is a sandbox escape targeting iOS 11.2.6, although the main vulnerability was only patched in iOS 11.4.1. It exploits a Mach port replacement vulnerability in launchd (CVE-2018-4280), as well as several smaller vulnerabilities in other services, to execute code inside the ReportCrash process, which is unsandboxed, runs as root, and has the task_for_pid-allow entitlement. This grants blanket control over every process running on the phone, including security-critical ones like amfid.

The exploit consists of several stages. This README will explain the main vulnerability and the stages of the sandbox escape step-by-step.

Impersonating system services

While researching crash reporting on iOS, I discovered a Mach port replacement vulnerability in launchd. By crashing in a particular way, a process can make the kernel send a Mach message to launchd that causes launchd to over-deallocate a send right to a Mach port in its IPC namespace. This allows an attacker to impersonate any launchd service it can look up to the rest of the system, which opens up numerous avenues to privilege escalation.

This vulnerability is also present on macOS, but triggering the vulnerability on iOS is more difficult due to checks in launchd that ensure that the Mach exception message comes from the kernel.

CVE-2018-4280: launchd Mach port over-deallocation while handling EXC_CRASH exception messages

Launchd multiplexes multiple different Mach message handlers over its main port, including a MIG handler for exception messages. If a process sends a mach_exception_raise or mach_exception_raise_state_identity message to its own bootstrap port, launchd will receive and process that message as a host-level exception.

Unfortunately, launchd's handling of these messages is buggy. If the exception type is EXC_CRASH, then launchd will deallocate the thread and task ports sent in the message and then return KERN_FAILURE from the service routine, causing the MIG system to deallocate the thread and task ports again. (The assumption is that if a service routine returns success, then it has taken ownership of all resources in the Mach message, while if the service routine returns an error, then it has taken ownership of none of the resources.)

Here is the code from launchd's service routine for mach_exception_raise messages, decompiled using IDA/Hex-Rays and lightly edited for readability:

kern_return_t __fastcall
catch_mach_exception_raise(                             // (a) The service routine is
        mach_port_t            exception_port,          //     called with values directly
        mach_port_t            thread,                  //     from the Mach message
        mach_port_t            task,                    //     sent by the client. The
        exception_type_t       exception,               //     thread and task ports could
        mach_exception_data_t  code,                    //     be arbitrary send rights.
        mach_msg_type_number_t codeCnt)
{
    __int64 __stack_guard;                 // ST28_8@1
    kern_return_t kr;                      // w0@1 MAPDST
    kern_return_t result;                  // w0@4
    __int64 codes_left;                    // x25@6
    mach_exception_data_type_t code_value; // t1@7
    int pid;                               // [xsp+34h] [xbp-44Ch]@1
    char codes_str[1024];                  // [xsp+38h] [xbp-448h]@7

    __stack_guard = *__stack_chk_guard_ptr;
    pid = -1;
    kr = pid_for_task(task, &pid);
    if ( kr )
    {
        _os_assumes_log(kr);
        _os_avoid_tail_call();
    }
    if ( current_audit_token.val[5] )                   // (b) If the message was sent by
    {                                                   //     a process with a nonzero PID
        result = KERN_FAILURE;                          //     (any non-kernel process),
    }                                                   //     the message is rejected.
    else
    {
        if ( codeCnt )
        {
            codes_left = codeCnt;
            do
            {
                code_value = *code;
                ++code;
                __snprintf_chk(codes_str, 0x400uLL, 0, 0x400uLL, "0x%llx", code_value);
                --codes_left;
            }
            while ( codes_left );
        }
        launchd_log_2(
            0LL,
            3LL,
            "Host-level exception raised: pid = %d, thread = 0x%x, "
                "exception type = 0x%x, codes = { %s }",
            pid,
            thread,
            exception,
            codes_str);
        kr = deallocate_port(thread);                   // (c) The "thread" port sent in
        if ( kr )                                       //     the message is deallocated.
        {
            _os_assumes_log(kr);
            _os_avoid_tail_call();
        }
        kr = deallocate_port(task);                     // (d) The "task" port sent in the
        if ( kr )                                       //     message is deallocated.
        {
            _os_assumes_log(kr);
            _os_avoid_tail_call();
        }
        if ( exception == EXC_CRASH )                   // (e) If the exception type is
            result = KERN_FAILURE;                      //     EXC_CRASH, then KERN_FAILURE
        else                                            //     is returned. MIG will
            result = 0;                                 //     deallocate the ports again.
    }
    *__stack_chk_guard_ptr;
    return result;
}

This is what the code does:

1. This function is the Mach service routine for mach_exception_raise exception messages: it gets invoked directly by the Mach system when launchd processes a mach_exception_raise Mach exception message. The arguments to the service routine are parsed from the Mach message, and hence are controlled by the message's sender.
2. At (b), launchd checks that the Mach exception message was sent by the kernel. The sender's audit token contains the PID of the sending process in field 5, which will only be zero for the kernel. If the message wasn't sent by the kernel, it is rejected.
3. The thread and task ports from the message are explicitly deallocated at (c) and (d).
4. At (e), launchd checks whether the exception type is EXC_CRASH, and returns KERN_FAILURE if so. The intent is to make sure not to handle EXC_CRASH messages, presumably so that ReportCrash is invoked as the corpse handler. However, returning KERN_FAILURE at this point will cause the task and thread ports to be deallocated again when the exception message is cleaned up later. This means those two ports will be over-deallocated.

In order for this vulnerability to be useful, we will want to free launchd's send right to a Mach service it vends, so that we can then impersonate that service to the rest of the system. This means that we'll need the task and thread ports in the exception message to really be send rights to the Mach service port we want to free in launchd. Then, once we've sent launchd the malicious exception message and freed the service port, we will try to get that same port name reused, but this time for a Mach port to which we hold the receive right. That way, when a client asks launchd to give them a send right to the Mach port for the service, launchd will instead give them a send right to our port, letting us impersonate that service to the client. After that, there are many different routes to gain system privileges.

Triggering the vulnerability