FirmAE - Emulate Firmware

FirmAE is a fully-automated framework that performs emulation and vulnerability analysis. FirmAE significantly increases the emulation success rate (From Firmadyne's 16.28% to 79.36%) with five arbitration techniques.

Spreadcheet of verified firmware versions: view

Below is a short guide on how to emulate the firmware of a TP-Link Wireless Router.

1. Clone repo, install dependencies and build image

void@dev:~$ git clone https://github.com/pr0v3rbs/FirmAE.git
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ ./download.sh
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ ./install.sh
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ reboot (to make sure $USER is member of docker group)
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ ./docker-init.sh
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ sudo apt install python3-coloredlogs -y

2. Setup a postgres container and import database schema

void@dev:~/FirmAE$ service postgresql stop
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ docker pull postgres
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ docker run -itd -e POSTGRES_USER=firmadyne -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=firmadyne -e POSTGRES_DB=firmware -p 5432:5432 -v /data:/var/lib/postgresql/data --name postgresql postgres
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ PGPASSWORD=firmadyne psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U firmadyne -d firmware < ./database/schema
(optional - verify)
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ PGPASSWORD=firmadyne psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U firmadyne -d firmware

3. Emulate firmware

Check the emulation using the -ec flag, if successfull you can then build/debug it using -ed flag.

void@dev:~/FirmAE/firmwares$ cp /mnt/hgfs/vm-share/Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip .
void@dev:~/FirmAE$ ./docker-helper.py -ec tplink ./firmwares/Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip 
2024-06-10 12:48:24 dev root[24739] INFO [*] docker0_Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip emulation start!
2024-06-10 12:54:08 dev root[24739] INFO [+] docker0_Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip emulation finished. (339.4081s)

void@dev:~/FirmAE$ ./docker-helper.py -ed firmwares/Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip
2024-06-10 12:56:53 dev root[27825] INFO [*] docker0_Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip start!
[*] /work/firmwares/Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip emulation start!!!
[*] extract done!!!
[*] get architecture done!!!
[*] /work/firmwares/Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip already succeed emulation!!!

[IID] 2
[MODE] debug
[+] Network reachable on 192.168.1.1!
[+] Web service on 192.168.1.1
[+] Run debug!
Creating TAP device tap2_0...
Set 'tap2_0' persistent and owned by uid 0
Bringing up TAP device...
Starting emulation of firmware... 192.168.1.1 true true 8.186311590 50.931019008
[*] firmware - Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731
[*] IP - 192.168.1.1
[*] connecting to netcat (192.168.1.1:31337)
[-] failed to connect netcat
------------------------------
|       FirmAE Debugger      |
------------------------------
1. connect to socat
2. connect to shell
3. tcpdump
4. run gdbserver
5. file transfer
6. exit
>

4. Create tunnel to emulated devices' web interface with socat

void@dev:~/FirmAE$ socat TCP-LISTEN:8080,reuseaddr,fork 'EXEC:docker exec -i docker0_Archer_C5400_US__V1_170731.zip "socat STDIO TCP-CONNECT:192.168.1.1:80"' &
[1] 68468

void@dev:~/FirmAE$ ss -plunta
Netid     State      Recv-Q     Send-Q                 Local Address:Port             Peer Address:Port     Process                               
udp       ESTAB      0          0               192.168.101.224%eth0:68              192.168.101.1:67                                             
tcp       LISTEN     0          4096                         0.0.0.0:5432                  0.0.0.0:*                                              
tcp       LISTEN     0          4096                       127.0.0.1:42187                 0.0.0.0:*                                              
tcp       LISTEN     0          4096                            [::]:5432                     [::]:*                                              
tcp       LISTEN     0          5                                  *:8080                        *:*         users:(("socat",pid=67161,fd=5))

void@dev:~/FirmAE$ curl http://localhost:8080
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=/webpages/login.html" />
</head>
</html>

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