MCUboot Injection attack of unprotected TLV values

published 2024-04-26 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GO-2024-2799 , EUVD-2024-30657

cvss: 7.7; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.1%; EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits: 0; none known

MCUboot is a secure bootloader for 32-bits microcontrollers. MCUboot uses a TLV (tag-length-value) structure to represent the meta data associated with an image. The TLVs themselves are divided into two sections, a protected and an unprotected section. The protected TLV entries are included as part of the image signature to avoid tampering. However, the code does not distinguish which TLV entries should be protected or not, so it is possible for an attacker to add unprotected TLV entries that should be protected. Currently, the primary protected TLV entries should be the dependency indication, and the boot record. An injected dependency value would primarily result in an otherwise acceptable image being rejected. A boot record injection could allow fields in a later attestation record to include data not intended, which could cause an image to appear to have properties that it should not have. As a workaround, disable the boot record functionality.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 2 y ago (2024-05-30)

Exploit prediction

0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	7.7	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
go	github.com/mcu-tools/mcuboot	all versions	no fix listed

Affected products

mcu-tools mcuboot

Classification

Weakness

CWE-354 Improper Validation of Integrity Check Value

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary