CVE-2008-6998

CVE: CVE-2008-6998
CWE:
- 121
- 119
bugs:
- 1362175
repo: 
vccs:
- note: 'Add Chrome to the repository

    '
  commit: '09911bf300f1a419907a9412154760efd0b7abc3'
fixes:
- note: "The developers added a check for the URL preview functionality to make sure
    it doesnt try\nand display a large URL. If the URL is longer than 128 chars then
    it would only\nshow up to 128 chars. \n"
  commit: 29d1eb815f296355e63a555729abc17b896d220a
bounty:
  date: 
  amount: 
  references: []
lessons:
  yagni:
    note: 
    applies: 
  question: |
    Are there any common lessons we have learned from class that apply to this
    vulnerability? In other words, could this vulnerability serve as an example
    of one of those lessons?

    Leave "applies" blank or put false if you did not see that lesson (you do
    not need to put a reason). Put "true" if you feel the lesson applies and put
    a quick explanation of how it applies.

    Don't feel the need to claim that ALL of these apply, but it's pretty likely
    that one or two of them apply.

    If you think of another lesson we covered in class that applies here, feel
    free to give it a small name and add one in the same format as these.
  serial_killer:
    note: 
    applies: 
  complex_inputs:
    note: |
      The URL was not expected, and some users could use the fact and execute arbitrary code
      with the vulnerability.
    applies: true
  distrust_input:
    note: "As a programmer they should always becareful with user inputs and never
      trust a user \nto use the system correctly. In this case the url previewer broke
      and cause a system \nshutdown which allowed the user to run arbitrary code.
      By checking the input for \nmalformed text and length, the devleopers will be
      able to solve and prevent this problem.\n"
    applies: true
  least_privilege:
    note: 
    applies: 
  native_wrappers:
    note: 
    applies: 
  defense_in_depth:
    note: 
    applies: 
  secure_by_default:
    note: 
    applies: 
  environment_variables:
    note: 
    applies: 
  security_by_obscurity:
    note: 
    applies: 
  frameworks_are_optional:
    note: 
    applies: 
reviews:
- 259
- 474
upvotes: 5
mistakes:
  answer: "This was both a design and coding mistake. I think this was a design mistake
    because they \nhad other overflow problems that followed with the commit of the
    url overflow problem. So \nthey were missing a crucial check of array size in
    their code. Which means they were overlooking \nthe problem entirely. This could
    also fall into the category of coding mistakes because nit pick\nerrors don't
    really belong in the design phase.\n\nSome extra fixes they should add are making
    sure the user inputs are always checked with white \nand black lists. This will
    solve problems before they even come up. Solving the problem as they \nshow up
    when the system is released is much harder to spot all the errors. Implement the
    checks \nand input validations as they were programming. \n"
  question: |
    In your opinion, after all of this research, what mistakes were made that
    led to this vulnerability? Coding mistakes? Design mistakes?
    Maintainability? Requirements? Miscommunications?

    Look at the CWE entry for this vulnerability and examine the mitigations
    they have written there. Are they doing those? Does the fix look proper?

    Use those questions to inspire your answer. Don't feel obligated to answer
    every one. Write a thoughtful entry here that those ing the software
    engineering industry would find interesting.
announced: '2009-08-19 01:24:52.797000000 -04:00'
subsystem:
  name: url_elider
  answer: c++ compiler, the code is under url_elider.
  question: |
    What subsystems was the mistake in?

    Look at the path of the source code files code that were fixed to get
    directory names. Look at comments in the code. Look at the bug reports how
    the bug report was tagged. Examples: "clipboard", "gpu", "ssl", "speech", "renderer"
discovered:
  date: 
  answer: "Nothing was posted about how the developers found the problem. But it was
    probably from \nan outside source. I went onto the CVE and looked though all the
    BID and exploit urls. \nThey they only provided what happened and the type of
    vulnerability it was. \n"
  google: 
  contest: 
  question: |
    How was this vulnerability discovered?

    Go to the bug report and read the conversation to find out how this was
    originally found. Answer in longform below in "answer", fill in the date in
    YYYY-MM-DD, and then determine if the vulnerability was found by a Google
    employee (you can tell from their email address). If it's clear that the
    vulenrability was discovered by a contest, fill in the name there.

    The "automated" flag can be true, false, or nil.
    The "google" flag can be true, false, or nil.

    If there is no evidence as to how this vulnerability was found, then you may
    leave the entries blank except for "answer". Write down where you looked in "answer".
  automated: 
description: "Google chrome had a problem when a user typed in more than 128 chars
  in the url, \nthen hovered over the url. The url preview should show up but the
  backend array \nthat held the url typed in would overflow and shut the system down.
  It could also \nlead to users getting a pointer to the current method. Then telling
  the code to go \nsomewhere the attacker's code is planted and run arbitrary code
  after the system crashes. \n"
unit_tested:
  fix: true
  code: false
  answer: "No, there were no unit tests for this problem. They had this problem since
    they \ncommited the code. By adding this corner case into automated tests it will
    prevent \nthis problem from happening again. \n"
  question: |
    Were automated unit tests involved in this vulnerability?
    Was the original code unit tested, or not unit tested? Did the fix involve
    improving the automated tests?

    For the "code" answer below, look not only at the fix but the surrounding
    code near the fix and determine if and was there were unit tests involved
    for this module.

    For the "fix" answer below, check if the fix for the vulnerability involves
    adding or improving an automated test to ensure this doesn't happen again.
major_events:
  answer: "No the problem was there initially, and was never found or fixed up to
    the point of the commit. \nSome major events I found was that a lot of chromes
    problems were found by automated testing.\nWhich is weird because this vunerability
    was not caught by the automated tests. Most of the commits\nwere actually for
    fixing or adding automated tests.\n"
  events:
  - date: 
    name: 
  - date: 
    name: 
  question: |
    Please record any major events you found in the history of this
    vulnerability. Was the code rewritten at some point? Was a nearby subsystem
    changed? Did the team change?

    The event doesn't need to be directly related to this vulnerability, rather,
    we want to capture what the development team was dealing with at the time.
curation_level: 1
CWE_instructions: |
  Please go to cwe.mitre.org and find the most specific, appropriate CWE entry
  that describes your vulnerability. (Tip: this may not be a good one to start
  with - spend time understanding this vulnerability before making your choice!)
bounty_instructions: |
  If you came across any indications that a bounty was paid out for this
  vulnerability, fill it out here. Or correct it if the information already here
  was wrong. Otherwise, leave it blank.
interesting_commits:
  answer: "There were actually a few buffer overflow vunerability problem in that
    one days worth of \ncommits. It seems like the code itself was missing a lot of
    checks and was allowing any \nuser inputs and placing them right into their arrays.
    This is falling into the problem of \nsecurity by obscurity where they thought
    the system was secure and users would not do \nanything weird or unecessary. These
    events was from one of the bug report readings on the CVE. \nThe commits that
    occured on that day included a chrome string update, they disabled tests for \na
    bug, a bunch of broken builds and roll backs. \n"
  commits:
  - note: 'update chrome string

      '
    commit: 42a9ab0deed87ec463c7fd49e7d206380c9ee0cb
  - note: 'roll back

      '
    commit: 502b410d0b81e7a6610999ad18da590b0d14f1bc
  question: |
    Are there any interesting commits between your VCC(s) and fix(es)?

    Write a brief (under 100 words) description of why you think this commit was
    interesting in light of the lessons learned from this vulnerability. Any
    emerging themes?

    If there are no interesting commits, demonstrate that you completed this section by explaining what happened between the VCCs and the fix.
curated_instructions: |
  If you are manually editing this file, then you are "curating" it. Set the
  entry below to "true" as soon as you start. This will enable additional
  integrity checks on this file to make sure you fill everything out properly.
  If you are a student, we cannot accept your work as finished unless curated is
  set to true.
upvotes_instructions: |
  For the first round, ignore this upvotes number.

  For the second round of reviewing, you will be giving a certain amount of
  upvotes to each vulnerability you see. Your peers will tell you how
  interesting they think this vulnerability is, and you'll add that to the
  upvotes score on your branch.
announced_instructions: |
  Was there a date that this vulnerability was announced to the world? You can
  find this in changelogs, blogs, bug reports, or perhaps the CVE date. A good
  source for this is Chrome's Stable Release Channel
  (https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/).
  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
fixes_vcc_instructions: |
  Please put the commit hash in "commit" below (see my example in
  CVE-2011-3092.yml). Fixes and VCCs follow the same format.
description_instructions: |
  You can get an initial description from the CVE entry on cve.mitre.org. These
  descriptions are a fine start, but they can be kind of jargony.

  Rewrite this description in your own words. Make it interesting and easy to
  read to anyone with some programming experience. We can always pull up the NVD
  description later to get more technical.

  Try to still be specific in your description, but remove Chromium-specific
  stuff. Remove references to versions, specific filenames, and other jargon
  that outsiders to Chromium would not understand. Technology like "regular
  expressions" is fine, and security phrases like "invalid write" are fine to
  keep too.