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Security Advisory - Activation Lock Bypass Vulnerability on Smartphones

  • SA No:huawei-sa-20171227-01-smartphone
  • Initial Release Date: Dec 27, 2017
  • Last Release Date: Dec 27, 2017

There is an activation lock bypass vulnerability on Smartphones. The smartphone is supposed to be activated by the former account after reset if find my phone function is on. The software does not have a sufficient protection of activation lock. Successful exploit could allow an attacker to bypass the activation lock and activate the smartphone by a new account after a series of operation. (Vulnerability ID: HWPSIRT-2017-11087)

This vulnerability has been assigned a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) ID: CVE-2017-17326.

Huawei has released software updates to fix this vulnerability. This advisory is available at the following link:

http://www.huawei.com/en/psirt/security-advisories/huawei-sa-20171227-01-smartphone-en

Product Name

Affected Version

Resolved Product and Version

Mate 9 Pro

LON-AL00BC00B139D

LON-AL00B 8.0.0.334(C00)

LON-AL00BC00B229

Successful exploit could allow an attacker to bypass the activation lock and activate the smartphone by a new account after a series of operation.

The vulnerability classification has been performed by using the CVSSv3 scoring system (http://www.first.org/cvss/specification-document).

Base Score: 4.6 (AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N)

Temporal Score: 4.3 (E:F/RL:O/RC:C)

This vulnerability can be exploited only when the following conditions are present:

The attacker has got the smartphone.

Vulnerability details:

The smartphone is supposed to be activate by the former account after reset if find my phone function is on. The software does not have a sufficient protection of activation lock. Successful exploit could allow an attacker to bypass the activation lock and activate the smartphone by a new account after a serious operation.

Customers should contact Huawei TAC (Huawei Technical Assistance Center) to request the upgrades. For TAC contact information, please refer to Huawei worldwide website at http://www.huawei.com/en/psirt/report-vulnerabilities.

This vulnerability was discovered by Huawei internal tester.

2017-12-27 V1.0 INITIAL

Huawei adheres to protecting the ultimate interests of users with best efforts and the principle of responsible disclosure and deal with product security issues through our response mechanism.

To enjoy Huawei PSIRT services and obtain Huawei product vulnerability information, please visit http://www.huawei.com/en/psirt.

To report a security vulnerability in Huawei products and solutions, please send it to PSIRT@huawei.com. For details, please visit http://www.huawei.com/en/psirt/report-vulnerabilities.

This document is provided on an "AS IS" basis and does not imply any kind of guarantee or warranty, either express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall Huawei or any of its directly or indirectly controlled subsidiaries or its suppliers be liable for any damages whatsoever including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits or special damages. Your use of the document, by whatsoever means, will be totally at your own risk. Huawei is entitled to amend or update this document from time to time.