[U-Boot] Does U-boot support ASLR?

[Graeme Russ]

Hi Guys,

My 2c worth...

The thought of applying ASLR to improve security is pointless unless you
have identified a reason to do so. You can't just apply a security
hardening technique willy-nilly and expect you security to improve. The
security of a system is equal to the weakest link and no amount of
strengthening the other links will improve security

Remember, U-Boot is a boot-loader. It is very transitory. Think about how
an attacker could exploit U-Boot (Hint: 10s after booting, they can't)

Network: Hit it with IP packets - But U-Boot only activates network code
on as as-needed basis (typically when someone runs a net command like tftp
etc) so you already have U-Boot shell access anyway

Serial: Buffer overruns on commands - U-Boot will crash and the board
reboots and again, you probably already had/have shell access

So it starts to boil down to protecting access to the shell - Access to
the shell opens up all sorts of possibilities such as changing environment
variables (including scripts) up to completely replacing the U-Boot image

So my thought would be, if you want to improve U-Boot security, perhaps
implement password protection on the shell

Regards,

Graeme