CVE-2011-3961

CVE: CVE-2011-3961
CWE:
- 362
bugs:
- 108871
repo: 
vccs:
- note: ''
  commit: 5377d8975b54512451ab05d4cf3248f8ed8a32c4
- note: ''
  commit: 50114e88843a1d3e0b18e7c50943d170005ab4e4
- note: ''
  commit: fc7b441f6e9541d111fadd050d0cbdb6ac761614
- note: ''
  commit: d4af1e727ce10d9f4eda8424e63cbb82b16f22b9
fixes:
- note: ''
  commit: a3b85d85e73b838e5bc6599a779a6a725980ce6e
bounty:
  date: '2012-02-08 12:00:00.000000000 -05:00'
  amount: 1000.0
  references:
  - http://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2012/02/stable-channel-update.html
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: "Initially it did not seem like this was applied to the code being written.\nIf
      threads were being used, then the developers should have thought of the\nmultitude
      of ways that mis-use of threads can cause errors. \n"
    applies: true
  secure_by_default:
    note: 
    applies: 
  environment_variables:
    note: 
    applies: 
  security_by_obscurity:
    note: 
    applies: 
  frameworks_are_optional:
    note: 
    applies: 
reviews:
- 9297001
- 9235052
upvotes: 3
mistakes:
  answer: "The coding mistake that was made was not locking certain sections of code\nthat
    multiple threads talked to. That what allowed a race condition to\nhappen. The
    fix was to see check to see if a specific variable existed,\nwhich I assumed was
    a thread. In this case though, it seems like if a thread\nalready existed, it
    would execute code. This either stops the previous\nthread from continuing, or
    it is stoping the new thread from taking over the\noriginal thread accessing the
    data.\n\nLooking further, the specific thread that was crashing was the main utility\nprocess
    for google chrome. It seems when certain variables were set to NULL, \nthen the
    process does not know how to handle it, and it either treats the\ncondition as
    a crash protocol, or crashed because it could handle the certain\nstatements as
    being NULL.\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: '2012-02-08 23:10:28.817000000 -05:00'
subsystem:
  name: in_process_webkit
  answer: I used the path of the file to find the module it was in.
  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: '2012-01-09'
  answer: |
    I believe the reason this was found was because there was a bug hunter
    looking in the matter of this bug. The person who found the reason for this
    crash one, knew about the bounty, and two, took time to reinstall there OS
    and then reinstall Chrome to see what was going on with the utility process
    crash. A normal user would have just moved onto another web browser.
  google: false
  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: false
description: "Race condition in Google Chrome allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary\ncode
  via vectors that triggers a crash of the utility process.\n\nThere seemed to be
  4 clents that could have lead to the crash of the utility process;\nIndexedDB, WebstoreInstallerHelper,
  the profile importer, and posix plugin loader.\n\nBefore the fix, it seemed the
  race condition was caused by the \"utility_process_host_\"\nvariable becoming NULL
  and then not being appropiately dealt with. Though I am uncertain, \nit seems once
  this variable was NULL, calls on it that required it to be defined would \nnot work,
  causing a bunch of calls to be thrown off. \n\nI am unsure how an attacker would
  cause the \"utility_process_host_\" to become NULL.\n"
unit_tested:
  fix: false
  code: true
  answer: |
    There seems to have been a unit test that was used before the vulnerability
    was found. The file is called "idbbindingutilities_browsertest.cc". It was
    edited after the vulnerability was found. No new test was written though after
    the vulnerability was found.
  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: |
    There does not appear to be any major events before the vulnerability was
    found/created. There are some commits related to the problem area, but they
    do not look like major events.
  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: |
      What seems interesting about this commit is there is a just a large amount
      of code added all at once to to this file. Though it may be correct code,
      it still seems to have the potential something wrong with it without being
      thoroughly being tested.
    commit: 567812dd45d36e093554664bdbd4284a9670a8b3
  - note: |
      This commit deals with cleaning up the in_process_webkit, which contained
      this vulnerability. This clean up could have potentially caused the
      vulnerability to occur when it could have been correct before.
    commit: fc7b441f6e9541d111fadd050d0cbdb6ac761614
  - 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.