CVE-2011-3083

CVE: CVE-2011-3083
CWE:
- 476
- 119
bugs:
- 112983
repo: 
vccs:
- note: Failed to create FtpTransaction objects for media when creating file
  commit: f6c21cb31f1b7bd4e8873a55e9954eece1fddda5
fixes:
- note: ''
  commit: d6b061bf189e0661a3d94d89dbcb2e6f70b433da
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: "Media files delivered through FTP weren't the only ones that caused a crash.\nMalformed
      FTP URLs (such as ftp://1) also resulted in a crash. No input\nvalidation was
      performed on the URLs. However, performing input validation\non URLs would have
      been tricky in the first place. \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:
- 9372002
upvotes: 
mistakes:
  answer: |
    A simple coding mistake seems to have been the cause of this vulnerability.
    Throughout the file, there are many lines of code in which both the main and
    media context variables are modified together, one after the other. For example,
    the function set_http_transaction_factory was called on both the main and media
    context variables. However, it seems that when the developer was writing the
    code to call the function set_ftp_transaction_factory, they accidentally forgot
    about the media context variable and only set the FTP transaction factory on
    the main context variable. This led to no FtpTransaction objects being created
    for media over FTP.

    This might have been prevented if the developer was more careful when creating
    the file, practiced pair programming, or if the code had undergone a more
    thorough code review before being released.
  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: '2012-05-15 20:55:01.247000000 -04:00'
subsystem:
  name: Profiles
  answer: Based on the path of the file that caused the vulnerability.
  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: '2012-02-07'
  answer: |
    It seems to have been discovered after the user attempted to use an HTML <video> tag
    with a malformed FTP URL in the SRC attribute. This caused a full browser crash.
  google: false
  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: |
  The vulnerability allowed remote attackers to intentionally cause an
  application crash by means of a specialized web page.

  If an attacker placed an FTP URL in the SRC attribute of an HTML
  <video> tag, then a browser crash would inevitably result when a user
  visited the web page and loaded the video.

  This was caused by a failure to properly create FtpTransaction objects for
  media delivered over FTP. The FtpTransaction object handles FTP transactions
  between the web page and client. While the majority of non-media content
  delivered over FTP used an FtpTransactionFactory object to create
  transactions, any media content, like videos, delivered over FTP didn't
  use the FtpTransactionFactory, which resulted in a NULL pointer dereference
  and a subsequent application crash when used.

  While the original reporter only noticed this issue when the FTP URL was
  within a <video> tag, the application would have similarly crashed if the user
  had placed an FTP URL ending in a media file format (AVI, MP3, etc.) in
  Chrome's address bar and hit enter. This was also the case for malformed
  FTP URLs with no file extension.
unit_tested:
  fix: false
  code: false
  answer: |
    Unit tests could not be found for the code relevant to the fix or for other
    code in the same file.
  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 major events were observed in the commit log.
  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: 
  commits:
  - note: |
      While fixing a memory leak, the developer changed how FtpTransaction objects were
      created with the main_context variable, which handles the majority of URLRequests.
      However, the developer failed to notice that the media_request_context_ variable,
      which handles URLRequests for media, was never given the ability to create
      FtpTransaction objects.
    commit: 77981db45d0e6e2367ce6e8bf341e512eb750cc2
  - note: 
    commit: 
  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.