Advisory ID:
BRLY-2025-021

Supermicro BMC firmware update validation bypass

September 18, 2025
Severity:
High
CVSS Score
7.2
Public Disclosure Date:
September 18, 2025
CVE ID:

Summary

BINARLY team has discovered a vulnerability in the Supermicro BMC firmware authentication design, allowing a potential attacker to update the system firmware with a specially crafted image.
Vendors Affected Icon

Vendors Affected

Supermicro
Affected Products icon

Affected Products

Multiple

Potential Impact

An attacker could trick the BMC administrator to update the BMC system with a custom image containing malicious content. This would result in the complete compromise of the BMC system, also providing access to the main host OS. It would also allow the attacker to make the attack persistent during a BMC component reboot and perform lateral movement within the compromised infrastructure, infecting other endpoints.

Vulnerability Information

  • BINARLY internal vulnerability identifier: BRLY-2025-021
  • Supermicro PSIRT assigned CVE identifier: CVE-2025-6198
  • CVSS v3.1: 7.2 High AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected Supermicro firmware with confirmed PoC impact

Device Version SHA256
X13SEM-F 01.03.47 bc859f2c4858ae51165b25fb8dfae6d7862e8515a921e7f7bdb9b66443a44501

Vulnerability description

auth_bmc_sig function parses the sig_table section of the uploaded BMC firmware, which contains information about signed regions of the image:

offset: 0x0000000, size: 0x0100000 – bootloader
offset: 0x0100000, size: 0x0001000 – sig_table
offset: 0x0110000, size: 0x0010000 – pdb_seca
offset: 0x0130000, size: 0x03e9e00 – kernel
offset: 0x0630000, size: 0x2000000 – rootFS (1st part)
offset: 0x2630000, size: 0x064a080 – rootFS (2nd part)

The firmware validation process involves calculating the SHA512 digest of these regions and comparing it with the signed with RSA4096 value placed in the firmware image. As all the regions used for the digest calculation are defined in the uploaded image itself (in the sig_table), it is possible to modify it (along with some other parts of the firmware image — for example, the kernel) and place the original data to unused space in the firmware. This means that the data will still match the original signed digest value.

For example, it is possible to modify 0x200 bytes of the kernel region at offset 0x1c5600, and then update sig_table with the following entries:

offset: 0x0000000, size: 0x0100000 – bootloader
offset: 0x0101000, size: 0x0001000 – sig_table (original)
offset: 0x0110000, size: 0x0010000 – pdb_seca
offset: 0x0130000, size: 0x0095600 – kernel (before custom content)
offset: 0x0102000, size: 0x0000200 – kernel (original data that was replaced with custom content)
offset: 0x01c5800, size: 0x0354600 – kernel (after custom content)
offset: 0x0630000, size: 0x2000000 – rootFS (1st part)
offset: 0x2630000, size: 0x064a080 – rootFS (2nd part)

We were able to validate this technique on a device, and it resulted in execution of customized Linux kernel during the boot, which effectively allowed us to bypass BMC RoT feature.

Note: it is also possible to downgrage the BMC firmware. For example, when using the latest firmware, firmware image with version 01.02.06 is accepted and flashed.

Note: the X13SEM-F firmware with version 01.04.15 (SHA256: b9039a551ea31fc2590567e8d1aa3ed55dcf74a3f7694921af9e4eb2b5997064), which was released after this issue was reported to the Supermicro PSIRT, is also vulnerable.

Disclosure timeline

This bug is subject to a 90 day disclosure deadline. After 90 days elapsed or a patch has been made broadly available (whichever is earlier), the bug report will become visible to the public.

Disclosure Activity Date (YYYY-mm-dd)
Supermicro PSIRT is notified 2025-05-29
Supermicro PSIRT confirmed reported issue 2025-06-21
Supermicro PSIRT assigned CVE number 2025-06-21
Supermicro PSIRT public disclosure date 2025-09-17
BINARLY public disclosure date 2025-09-18

Acknowledgements

BINARLY team

Tags
BMC
Supermicro
Vulnerability
FWHunt
See if you are impacted now with our Firmware Vulnerability Scanner