November 14, 2025
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No Leak, No Problem – Bypassing ASLR with a ROP Chain to Gain RCE
Smart cam hack wows, but comments cry “ASLR wasn’t even on”
TLDR: A researcher showed how to hijack an INSTAR smart camera without secret memory hints, touting an ASLR bypass. Commenters split: some applaud the thorough work, others say ASLR wasn’t enabled for key code, making the “bypass” marketing — still worrying with thousands of devices exposed online.
A researcher cracked open a popular INSTAR smart camera and showed how to take control without needing secret memory clues, claiming an ASLR bypass — that’s “address randomization” meant to confuse attackers. Using the camera’s serial port to grab firmware, then chaining tiny code snippets (a ROP chain), he landed unauthenticated remote code execution. The full story is a soup-to-nuts adventure you can read on the Modzero blog, and yes, the boot logs are basically sci‑fi poetry.
But the comments are the real fireworks. OneLessThing calls it “early 2000s level stuff,” fun and hands-on, while side‑eyeing the headline for making ASLR the star. Then nneonneo drops the mic: the binary isn’t PIE (position‑independent), so it loads at a fixed address — meaning there wasn’t much “random” to beat. Cue the meme storm: “No PIE, no problem,” “ASLR = AS‑Later,” and jokes about trying “admin:admin” like it’s vintage hacking chic.
With Shodan showing around 12,000 cameras online, readers flip between applause and alarm. Some cheer the thorough, start‑to‑finish research; others argue the “bypass” is just exploiting a door left unlocked. The verdict from the peanut gallery: stellar write‑up, spicy headline, and yet another reminder that smart gadgets can be very dumb about security.
Key Points
- •The research targets INSTAR’s IN-8401 2K+ IP camera and extends to devices sharing the same firmware in the 2K+ and 4K series.
- •Shodan indicates roughly 12,000 INSTAR devices are exposed on the public internet.
- •Firmware access was pursued via the device’s UART interface, using PCBites probes and an FTDI USB-to-serial converter connected to a Linux machine.
- •Documentation suggested interrupting the boot process to obtain a root shell; boot logs revealed U-Boot 2019.04 and a Novatek CPU with 512 MiB DRAM.
- •An ARM ROP chain was constructed to bypass ASLR without an address leak, enabling unauthenticated remote code execution.