Microsoft PlayReady is one of the key technologies used by PayTV industry and OTT platforms for Digital Rights Management and content security in general. According to Microsoft, PlayReady Server SDK has several hundred service provider licensees. Security Explorations conducted security analysis of Microsoft Play Ready content protection technology in the environment of CANAL+ SAT TV provider. As a result, complete access to movie assets and content keys available in CANAL+ VOD library could be gained with the use of a fake client device identity. Below, a summary of discovered issues is given: 1) weak security of CANAL+ STB (unpatched 3 years old vulnerabilities) made it possible to acquire STB PlayReady private group ECC key (its plaintext value), 2) PlayReady license server did not check whether the client device identity used in a certificate chain corresponded to the valid subscriber (fake MAC and SERIAL values could be used for license requests), 3) PlayReady license server did not verify whether client device had access to target content (any VOD content / collection could be accessed, this includes paid content that was available though 48h rentals only or collections of movies from channels to which the subscriber didn’t have access to), 4) PlayReady license server was not synced with Content Delivery Network (CDN), as such access to content could be made outside of the granted license period (outside of the rental period, etc.), 5) there has been no key rotation observed (same, static content keys were returned by the PlayReady license server for given content), 6) PlayReady protected content was not watermarked (same content was returned for requests corresponding to different client identities), 7) PlayReady license server could be crawled in an automatic fashion for content keys, 8) there has been no detection and blacklisting observed as a response to invalid / malicious license requests (some triggered license server exceptions), 9) PlayReady certificate chain in use by target STB device didn’t have any time / expiration attribute. PlayReady security model relies on the security of the link between client device and a license server. As such, a compromised client device can implicate compromise of the security of content. This security model should take into account such a compromise. As such, reversing PlayReady operation should be more challenging too. Acquiring PlainReady client secrets such as group keys should not be straightforward either. Unfortunately, this was not the case for CANAL+ STB devices as: 1) multiple symbol names were left in a PlayReady binary (Linux ELF file), 2) the binary didn't contain any reverse engineering countermeasures such as code obfuscation, etc. 3) PlayReady functionality was implemented at the application layer. This implicated no need to break security of the kernel or HW chip (PlayReady compromise from user level application). This made runtime hooking and tracing PlayRedy operation easy. It was interesting to find out that instead of the usual code and symbols obfuscation, Microsoft likely decided to build DRM strength on the strength of ECC crypto and associated math in general (my impression). They tweaked standard NIST P-256 ECC curve parameters and conducted whole computations in an affine space (it is called a "MOD" space in binary). The ECC curve parameters were embedded in a binary in a non-standard way (affine transformation to MOD space). All calculations were conducted with respect to that transformation too (and with certain optimizations such as Montgomery ladder). Yet, this hasn't been an obstacle as long as fundamentals of ECC cryptography were acquired. The crucial weak point was the P256 symbol and subroutine verifying whether a given point is on curve. This subroutine indirectly leaked curve parameters (and type). The ECC formula for NIST P-256 curve is the following: Y^2 = X^3 + A*x + B This formula can be used to check whether a given point (X,Y) lies on ECC curve. For points transformed to the MOD space Y = y*F X = x*F This yields the following: (y*F)^2 = (x*F)^3 + A*x + B y^2 * F^2 = x ^3 * F^3 + A*x + B // multiplying by the F^-1 (inverse) y^2 * F^2 * F^-1 = x ^3 * F^3 * F^-1 + A*x*F^-1 + B*F^-1 y^2 * F^2 * F^-1 = x ^3 * F^3 * F^-1 + (A*F^-1)*x + B*F^-1 which yields the curve parameters used for points transformed to MOD space: real_a=(A*F^-1) real_b=B*F^-1 While the private group key and group certificates were embedded in PlayReady binary in an encrypted form (possible to decrypt with the use of device root key), their plaintext content could be retrieved in runtime with the help of user level API too (access to encrypted file system through symbols exposed by a shared library). In Jul 2022, I contacted Microsoft and offered to share the results of my research with the company. To me it looked like a bug at license server end, but Microsoft closed the case on the basis "this is not a server-side compromise". As a result of Microsoft evaluation and multiple communication problems during report handling process (mails not reaching MS, automated MSRC system not showing MS responses in the message chat, advice to contact "breach" team while this should be MS job to forward any relevant information to proper team such as PlayReady), I decided not to get into further discussion with Microsoft and did not explain in particular that server side compromise did not matter for the given case as Microsoft Play Ready license server was verified to provide license (and content keys) to any content (not authorized, not rented, not paid, etc.), it was not synced with CDN and had no watermarking in place. I tried to reach out to CANAL+ instead, but without much success. CANAL+ company was clearly not interested to talk to me over this (no responses to e-mails and/or requests to establish an official communication channel for the reporting, discussion and vulnerabilities disclosure purposes). Although Microsoft evaluated the issue as no bug in PlayReady, the overall attack exposes both a significant PlayReady limitation and a fault at CANAL+ end (no server side auth checks, no watermarking in place, no license server syncing with CDN, etc.). The demonstrated technique might potentially constitute a significant risk for content providers as compromise of a single device or presence of the unpatched device is sufficient for a large scale, distributed piracy of a high premium content coming from CANAL+, HBO, FOX, WARNER, etc. (18K+ assets in CANAL+ VOD library). Microsoft is aware of that and points out that Microsoft Azure Media Services (AMS) are free of the above limitations. What I am not sure is whether Microsoft PlayReady licensees are. According to Microsoft, PlayReady Server SDK has several hundred service provider licensees. They should implement security features missing in PlayReady such as authentication, authorization, watermarking, etc. on their own in order to avoid the situation encountered in CANAL+ environment. As such, there is clearly the value in releasing details of the research, so that others can either learn, evaluate or prepare for the risks of the demonstrated content theft whenever PlayReady client compromise occurs. Microsoft agreed with the above (on the value of disclosure), but preferred that the issue got released when STB fixes are in place. As there is no bug claimed at Microsoft end, the STB issues have been known for 3 years and CANAL+ hasn’t reached out to me over the topic of disclosure (last contact with the company in late Aug 2022), I see no reason to wait with the release of technical details. More information regarding Microsoft, CANAL+ and Sygnal anti-piracy organizations response along sample demo movies illustrating POC operation can be found at the following pages: https://security-explorations.com/mspr_cplus_info.html Brief technical details in a form of a README.md file can be downloaded from this location: https://security-explorations.com/mspr_cplus_details.html Thank you. Best Regards, Adam Gowdiak ---------------------------------- Security Explorations - AG Security Research Lab https://security-explorations.com ---------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Sent through the Full Disclosure mailing list https://nmap.org/mailman/listinfo/fulldisclosure Web Archives & RSS: https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/
From: Security Explorations <contact () security-explorations com>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2022 12:23:11 +0100
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