angler-fishThe Vulnerability History Project

CVE-2014-1713

Memory addresses were continuing to be accessed after being freed. This could allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service or other unknown impact. This vulnerability was the result of misusing C's built-in pointers.


This was a coding mistake made by not properly handling pointers. When the author added their code, they failed to recognize that their code would continue to access certain resources after being freed. One way to resolve this is to dig through the code and figure out where resources are being used after free. However, that can be very difficult and time consuming, the simple solution was to switch over to C++'s smart pointers which automatically handle these kinds of errors.
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    CVE: CVE-2014-1713
    CWE:
    - 416
    - 399
    bugs:
    - 352374
    repo: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink
    vccs:
    - note: This seems to be when the majority of attributes.cpp was added.
      commit: 
    fixes:
    - note: |
        They changed changed instances of pointers (for the problematic variables)
        to smart pointers.
    
        additional information on smart pointers:
        https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh279674.aspx
    
        information on the smart pointers used for this commit:
        https://webkit.org/blog/5381/refptr-basics/
      commit: 
    bounty:
      date: '2014-03-14 20:30:00.000000000 -04:00'
      amount: 50000.0
      references:
      - http://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2014/03/stable-channel-update_14.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: 
        applies: 
      defensive_coding:
        note: |
          Using malloc() and free() correctly is covered in defensive coding.
          It is mentioned that you should always free() after a malloc() and that
          you should never free() twice. It would be good to add - never use
          allocated resources after calling free() on them.
        applies: true
      secure_by_default:
        note: 
        applies: 
      environment_variables:
        note: 
        applies: 
      security_by_obscurity:
        note: 
        applies: 
      frameworks_are_optional:
        note: 
        applies: 
    reviews:
    - 196343011
    upvotes: 13
    mistakes:
      answer: |
        This was a coding mistake made by not properly handling pointers. When the
        author added their code, they failed to recognize that their code would
        continue to access certain resources after being freed. One way to resolve
        this is to dig through the code and figure out where resources are being used
        after free. However, that can be very difficult and time consuming, the simple
        solution was to switch over to C++'s smart pointers which automatically handle
        these kinds of errors.
      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: '2014-03-16 10:06:45.617000000 -04:00'
    subsystem:
      name: blink
      answer: |
        The mistake is within blink's bindings subsystem. Chrome's blink is a
        rendering engine designed to speed the process of rendering web pages. Within
        blink, is the bindings subsystem which is used to handle and store path
        bindings.
      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: '2014-03-13'
      answer: "The vulnerability was discovered by infe...@chromium while fuzz testing.\n\nfuzz
        information:\nhttps://cluster-fuzz.appspot.com/testcase?key=4911857689165824 \n"
      google: true
      contest: infe...@chromium
      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: |
      Memory addresses were continuing to be accessed after being freed. This could
      allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service or other unknown impact.
    
      This vulnerability was the result of misusing C's built-in pointers.
    unit_tested:
      fix: true
      code: true
      answer: "There are unit tests located at '/blink/Source/bindings/tests/'. The files\n'results/V8TestObject.cpp'
        and 'results/V8TestObjectPython.cpp' were modified\nalong with the fix. \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: I did not see any 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: 
        commit: 
      - 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.
    

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