Most users of computing devices seldom giving the very real need to understand application security much credence. The same is true for most Windows CE users, who, since 1996 have without much more than a second glance consumed tools, apps and utilities from the Internet without much thought to the quality and security profile of those programs.

If Windows CE had been more popular, hadn't faded into obscurity and had become more ubiquitous like its Win32 counterpart. How would history have recorded the security profile and security efforts of those few who chose to develop for the platform?

In an interesting, if technical series of articles. Elias Augusto has been taking a look at the practicalities of performing a low level buffer exploit against H/PC Pro 3.0 under the SH3 architecture. Using a couple of apps from the SCL here on HPC:Factor, Elias goes on to develop the exploit attack and subsequently works towards making it a fully demonstrable proof of concept.

It isn't an easy read if you are not a security researcher or hacker, however Elias's article offers a fascinating view into the world of security research, offering a clear insight into the intricacies and hurdles experienced in creating such exploits. His work leaves the topic open to some interesting thinking on just how well written these early apps were as well as what might exploits still might be possible were modern thinking and attack techniques being readily applied against the H/PC.

For simplicity, the articles in the series up to the current time are linked below or you can visit Elias's blog directly to view the latest developments.

1. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Part 1: Tools and Sources of Information
2. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Part 2: Finding Buffer Overflows with the Embedded Visual Tools Debugger
3. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Part 3: Unicode Blues and an Unfortunate Conclusion (For Now)
4. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Part 4: Buffer Overflows Take Two, Heap Spritzing, and Turning Lessons Learned…
5. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Part 4: RISC Shellcoding Philosophy and Examples
6. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Interlude: Usable Null-Free RISC Shellcode and ASCII Parameter Translation
7. Windows CE SuperH3 Exploit Development Part…0: A Statement and a Fresh Start
   

View: Elias Augusto's Blog