angler-fishThe Vulnerability History Project

CVE-2011-0722

A user could pass a corrupted RealMedia file (RealMedia being an audio/video file format) to FFmpeg and corrupt the heap as a result. This in theory could allow a malicious actor to corrupt the heap with actual code. This code could then be executed from within the program, giving the malicious actor any number of advantages depending on what the code did.


The vulnerability existed in two lines of code in an untested 90-line function executing a complex task. This mistake comes down to a few factors: - The function was too large and complex, making it difficult to understand and maintain. - There were no unit tests to catch edge cases such as this vulnerability. - The entire decoder was implemented almost entirely by a single developer with no evidence of code review, making the tiny issue very easy to miss. Regarding the architecture of the decoder, the issue stemmed from a series of nested state structs that all contain fields that should be equivalent, but not all of them were updated. The developers should possibly have considered a flattened state structure or a more robust interface that would avoid state disagreements.
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CVE: CVE-2011-0722
CWE: 119
ipc:
  note: |
    The vulnerability is in a decoder that runs as part of a larger transcoding
    or playing process, so its I/O is intra-process.
  answer: false
  question: |
    Did the feature that this vulnerability affected use inter-process
    communication? IPC includes OS signals, pipes, stdin/stdout, message
    passing, and clipboard. Writing to files that another program in this
    software system reads is another form of IPC.

    Answer should be boolean.
CVSS: AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
bugs:
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ffmpeg/+bug/690169
i18n:
  note: |
    The vulnerability was in an audio-video decoder, to which
    internationalization concerns do not apply.
  answer: false
  question: |
    Was the feature impacted by this vulnerability about internationalization
    (i18n)? An internationalization feature is one that enables people from all
    over the world to use the system. This includes translations, locales,
    typography, unicode, or various other features.

    Answer should be boolean. Write a note about how you came to the conclusions
    you did.
vccs:
- note: |
    Identified by archeogit and SZZUnleashed; manually verified.

    This commit just adds the entire file containing the vulnerability.
  commit: a52ef6a894ede214162cd9e95685daa5e656e2f7
fixes:
- note: |
    Previously identified; manually verified.

    Interestingly, this commit was not made with the intent of fixing the
    vulnerability. In fact, it was made over a year before the vulnerability
    was even discovered.
  commit: ec10d2d53999f6edf7d7b5ac88df263eccfb1fb0
bounty:
  amt: 
  url: 
  announced: 
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 input is in the RealMedia format, which is a container format for
      both audio and video. There are many avenues for corruption or
      manipulation.
    applies: true
  distrust_input:
    note: |
      A manipulated file could crash the program due to a lack of input
      validation.
    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: 
upvotes: 14
CWE_note: Specified by NIST
lifetime:
  answer: |
    This vulnerability existed in the code for three years (Dec 2007 - Dec
    2010), although what ended up being the fix was inadvertently made about 2
    years in (Nov 2009) for version 0.6. The vulnerability then only existed in
    version 0.5 for that last year before its discovery.

    The file was under fairly active development, with at least a commit every
    few weeks or so, for the entire two-year span up until the fix; however,
    nearly all of that development was done by a single developer, and I found
    no evidence of code reviews, meaning the two lines making up the
    vulnerability were easily overlooked.

    As alluded to above, the fix commit was made for version 0.6 of FFmpeg,
    meaning any earlier releases did not contain it by default. The
    vulnerability was finally discovered in version 0.5 in late 2010 (three
    years after its introduction, and a year after the fix was made in 0.6),
    and the fix commit was subsequently backported to resolve it. The original
    reporter ultimately found the fix himself while digging around the
    different versions for the vulnerability in early 2011.

    The time period for the development of the code (for 0.6) was not
    particularly volatile, and the code itself did not experience any breaking
    changes. It may be interesting to note, however, that the vulnerability was
    discovered and patched around the same time as the LibAV fork, where a
    significant portion of the FFmpeg developers essentially seceded (and it
    was not amicable at all) from the project over differences in philosophy
    and attempted to unilaterally declare that FFmpeg was deprecated in favor
    of their own version. It was a time of high tensions, to say the least.
  question: |
    We consider the "lifetime" of this vulnerability to be from the earliest
    VCC to the latest fix.

    How would you characterize the development of this vulnerable code during
    its lifetime? Many new features? Neglected? One developer?
    Massive refactoring? Changing big dependencies?
    Changing architectures or language?


    What about the time period for the project itself?
    Did it undergo big changes during this time?

    Look at:
      * the commit messages between the two, using a command like
          git log --stat abc..def -- your/file.c
          (where a)
      * the changelog between the two
mistakes:
  answer: |
    The vulnerability existed in two lines of code in an untested 90-line
    function executing a complex task. This mistake comes down to a few factors:
    - The function was too large and complex, making it difficult to understand
    and maintain.
    - There were no unit tests to catch edge cases such as this vulnerability.
    - The entire decoder was implemented almost entirely by a single developer
    with no evidence of code review, making the tiny issue very easy to miss.

    Regarding the architecture of the decoder, the issue stemmed from a series
    of nested state structs that all contain fields that should be equivalent,
    but not all of them were updated. The developers should possibly have
    considered a flattened state structure or a more robust interface that
    would avoid state disagreements.
  question: |
    In your opinion, after all of this research, what mistakes were made that
    led to this vulnerability? Design mistakes? Maintainability? Requirements?
    Miscommunications? Lack of testing? Lack of understanding? Lack of
    specifications? Working alone?

    An answer like "it was just a coding mistake" is not thoughtful enough.
    If it's such an easy mistake to make, how was it missed?

    Also, 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.
nickname: 
subsystem:
  name: avcodec
  answer: |
    While the vulnerability was discovered fuzz testing both ffmpeg and ffplay,
    it was actually located in the avcodec library that both tools depend on.
  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.

    In FFmpeg, the Component field is useful here. Often people will say
      "undetermined" - do more homework than them and make a judgement call if
      you can.

    Note: a filepath is NOT a subsystem - that's too granular.

    A non-exhaustive examples for ffmpeg are:
      * avcodec
      * avdevice
      * avfilter
      * avformat
      * avutil
      * build system
      * documentation
      * fate
      * ffplay
      * ffprobe
      * postproc
      * swresample
      * swscale
      * tools
      * trac
      * website

    If this involves fixing multiple subsystems, you can make this an array.

    In 'answer', explain how you arrived at this determination.
discovered:
  answer: Discovered via fuzz testing by a security researcher
  contest: false
  question: |
    How was this vulnerability discovered?

    Find any relevant bug reports or mailing list conversations read the
    conversation to find out how this was
    originally found. Answer in longform below in "answer".

    If it's clear that the vulenrability was discovered by a
    contest, fill in the name of the contest in "answer".

    If it's clear that it was found by a developer of the project itself,
    e.g. from the email address or a previous committer.

    The automated, contest, and developer flags can be true, false, or nil.

    If there is no evidence as to how this vulnerability was found, then please
    explain where you looked. Thus, 'answer' should always have some
    explanation.
  automated: true
  developer: false
description: |
  A user could pass a corrupted RealMedia file (RealMedia being an audio/video
  file format) to FFmpeg and corrupt the heap as a result.

  This in theory could allow a malicious actor to corrupt the heap with actual code.
  This code could then be executed from within the program, giving the malicious actor any
  number of advantages depending on what the code did.
unit_tested:
  fix: false
  code: false
  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 code: and fix: - your answer should be boolean.

    For the code_answer below, look not only at the fix but the surrounding
    code near the fix in related directories and determine if and was there were
    unit tests involved for this subsystem. The code

    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.

    In FFmpeg, they have the FATE suite of regression tests. They are not
    "unit" tests per se, but are automated regression tests. If the fix for the
    vulnerability involved adding or updating a FATE suite, then make fix: true.
  fix_answer: |
    No additional unit tests were found, and the FATE suite still had not been
    implemented yet.
  code_answer: 'No unit tests were found, and the FATE suite had not been implemented
    yet.

    '
reported_date: '2010-12-17'
specification:
  answer: false
  answer_note: |
    No specification violations are mentioned in the CVE, bug report, relevant
    commit messages, or security advisories for package updates.
  instructions: |
    Is there mention of a violation of a specification? For example,
    an RFC specification, a protocol specification, codec spec, or a requirements
    specification.

    Be sure to check all artifacts for this: bug report, security
    advisory, commit message, etc.

    The answer field should be boolean. In answer_note, please explain
    why you come to that conclusion.
announced_date: 2011-05-20T22:55Z
curation_level: 1.0
published_date: 2011-05-20T22:55Z
CWE_instructions: |
  Please go to http://cwe.mitre.org and find the most specific, appropriate CWE
  entry that describes your vulnerability. We recommend going to
  https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/699.html for the Software Development
  view of the vulnerabilities. We also recommend the tool
  http://www.cwevis.org/viz to help see how the classifications work.

  If you have anything to note about why you classified it this way, write
  something in CWE_note. This field is optional.

  Just the number here is fine. No need for name or CWE prefix. If more than one
  apply here, then choose the best one and mention the others in CWE_note.
autodiscoverable:
  answer: true
  answer_note: The vulnerability was discovered via fuzz testing.
  instructions: |
    Is it plausible that a fully automated tool could have discovered
    this? These are tools that require little knowledge of the domain,
     e.g. automatic static analysis, compiler warnings, fuzzers.

    Examples for true answers: SQL injection, XSS, buffer overflow,
    use-after-free

    Examples for false: specification violations, permissions issues, anything
    that would require a tool to be "aware" of the project's
    domain-specific requirements.

    The answer field should be boolean. In answer_note, please explain
    why you come to that conclusion.
bugs_instructions: |
  Are there any bug reports that trace to this vulnerability?

  Sometimes a commit message will mention a bug, or the security page on FFmpeg.
  Sometimes you need to search bug database, which is here:
      https://trac.ffmpeg.org
yaml_instructions: |
  ===YAML Primer===
  This is a dictionary data structure, akin to JSON.
  Everything before a colon is a key, and the values here are usually strings

  For one-line strings, you can just use quotes after the colon

  For multi-line strings, as we do for our instructions, you put a | and then
  indent by two spaces.

  For readability, we hard-wrap multi-line strings at 80 characters. This is
  not absolutely required, but appreciated.
  === End YAML Primer===
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:
  commits:
  - note: 
    commit: 
  - note: 
    commit: 
  question: |
    Optional: 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?

    This is a catch-all for any interesting commit you find.
    Example of interesting commits:
      * Giant refactors
      * Changing an API or big dependency
      * A change that looks really sketchy
      * Commits where a developer mentions security in their message or comments
curated_instructions: |
  If you are manually editing this file, then you are "curating" it.
  This will enable additional integrity checks on this file to make sure you
  fill everything out properly.

  IMPORTANT: If you are a student, we cannot accept your work as finished unless
  curation_level is properly set.

  The latest curation level is 1.0.
  If you are curating this vulnerability, set it to the latest curation level.
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.
nickname_instructions: |
  A catchy name for this vulnerability that would draw attention it. If the
  report mentions a nickname, e.g. "Heartbleed", use that. Or come up with one!

  Must be under 30 characters. Optional. Be appropriate.
reported_instructions: |
  What date was the vulnerability reported to the security team? Look at the
  security bulletins, bug reports, commit messages of the fix.

  Reported date is likely the same as announced and published. Leave blank if
  you can't find it out.

  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
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 of this for FFmpeg are their version numbers traced to tags:

    https://ffmpeg.org/security.html
    https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/releases


  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
fixes_vcc_instructions: |
  Please put the commit hash in "commit" field below (see my example in
  CVE-2011-3092.yml).

  Fixes and VCCs follow the same format - they are arrays of hashes.

  The notes field is optional - place anything that clarifies things or you
  find interesting in there.
published_instructions: |
  Is there a published fix or patch date for this vulnerability?
  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD 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 project-specific
  stuff. Remove references to versions, specific filenames, and other jargon
  that outsiders to this project would not understand. Technology like "regular
  expressions" is fine, and security phrases like "invalid write" are fine to
  keep too.

  Your target audience is people just like you before you took any course in
  security

See a mistake? Is something missing from our story? We welcome contributions! All of our work is open-source and version-controlled on GitHub. You can curate using our Curation Wizard.

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