CVE-2010-4035

CVE: CVE-2010-4035
CWE:
- 416
- 20
bugs:
- 50428
repo: 
vccs:
- note: |
    This commit introduced the section of the code where the infobar delegate
    pointer was used irresponsibly inside the credit card autofil system
  commit: cf8ebbba224c7d01170a46d81b3feda976298b67
- note: |
    This commit introduced the section of the code where the inforbad delegate
    pointer was used irresponsibly inside the translation system
  commit: 74a5fec1709b6c1621ced52ddecf54004d8d09c0
fixes:
- note: |
    The fix involved being more careful with handling of pointers, there
    ended up being a pointer that was referenced after it was freed, causing
    the crash. They ended up doing this by replacing the scoped pointer with a
    normal pointer for the infobar delegate. This required the chrome team
    to handle memory management on their own, so that it wouldn't get unallocated
    too early.
  commit: 0d04639df7a3b2425c671ab08f68eb32b3d04cb1
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: 
    applies: 
  distrust_input:
    note: 
    applies: 
  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:
- 3413026
- 3466006
upvotes: 6
mistakes:
  answer: "This problem seems to be caused by a coding mistake. For both the subsystems\nthat
    the vulnerability existed in, the problem involved incorrect usage of \npointers.
    Low level languages where memory management has to be done manually\ncan be tricky,
    it would be shocking if no such errors ever occurred inside a\nproject as large
    as chrome. What's interesting about this bug is the fact that\nautomatically managed
    pointers (which are supposed to make things easier) actually\ncaused the bug to
    happen. Because of this, the team decided to do their own memory\nmanagement,
    which they could have more explicit control over.\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: '2010-10-21 15:00:04.737000000 -04:00'
subsystem:
  name:
  - autofill
  - translate
  answer: The mistake was inside the autofill and translation subsystems.
  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: '2010-07-27'
  answer: |
    The bug was discovered by human testing on the autofill feature for credit
    cards and was reported by a member of the chromium team.
  google: true
  contest: false
  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: false
description: "There was a bug in the autofill and translation features which could
  allow attackers\nto cause the application to crash remotely, therefore introducing
  a \ndenial of service vulnerability. This crash is caused by accessing a pointer\nafter
  it was freed. The reason this was possible is because of the way the chrome team\nwas
  using a scoped pointer for management of an 'infobar' delegate pointer. Scoped pointers\nhave
  automatic memory management, which seems to have cleaned up the pointer while it
  was\nstill in use.\n"
unit_tested:
  fix: true
  code: false
  answer: |
    The original code was not unit tested and the problem was not found through
    unit testing. In fact, it took the chromium team a while to find a way to deterministically
    reproduce the problem. After finding a way to reproduce the problem, some unit testing was
    added in the translation subsystem, but not the credit card autofill system.
  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: Throughout the life of this bug, the translation subsystem saw the addition
    of many features.
  events:
  - date: '2010-07-18'
    name: New languages added to translation system.
  - date: '2010-07-01'
    name: Switched out translation manager
  - date: '2010-04-20'
    name: Added ability to translate page with unknown language based on metadata
  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: 0
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: 
  commits:
  - note: |
      An initial attempt at fixing the bug which didn't work. Added a condition which
      would log when the pointer for tab delegate was null. This probably did help
      discover a more deterministic way to reproduce the error.
    commit: dfa7be2725cd81ffd8f11a6b902159cde7db4957
  - note: 'Added new languages to translation system.

      '
    commit: d139a130adb6b17921e1a71da21fcc8fc5c73722
  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.