CVE-2016-2161

CVE: CVE-2016-2161
CWE: 20
ipc:
  note: 
  answer: 
  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. Explain your answer
bugs: []
i18n:
  note: 
  answer: 
  instructions: |
    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.
repo: 
vccs:
- note: |-
    These memory allocation statements had been updated many times previously. The author was attempting to fix other problems when introducing this vulnerability.

    Formerly c2d772c341d9b9922ade31aad299039185900b05 before HTTPD rewrote Git history.
  commit: 1bc6da5bb44a67db371a19244c65a3d511b477d6
- note: 
  commit: 
fixes:
- note: |-
    Used helper functions for malloc/free that single step.

    Formerly db5fcaac2a76d88329dbb014de0664b5b0a30bfb before HTTPD rewrote Git history.
  commit: d049e3ce42b89ba66c17b0cd8c4c5992ec2b12fe
- note: 
  commit: 
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: 
    applies: 
  distrust_input:
    note: 'The vulnerability  occurred because of a lack of proper checks on the memory
      allocated.

      '
    applies: true
  least_privilege:
    note: 
    applies: 
  native_wrappers:
    note: 
    applies: 
  defense_in_depth:
    note: helper functions added which distrust the default memory allocation functions
    applies: true
  secure_by_default:
    note: 
    applies: 
  environment_variables:
    note: 
    applies: 
  security_by_obscurity:
    note: 
    applies: 
  frameworks_are_optional:
    note: 
    applies: 
reviews: []
upvotes: 2
CWE_note: 
mistakes:
  answer: |
    This vulnerability is the result of a coding mistake. More specifically, a missed edge case
    that can be used maliciously for a dos attack. The vulnerability was created in a single commit but
    the allocation functions had been rewritten a few times previously. It does not appear that prior functions
    covered this edge case either.

    This vulnerability falls under the Availability category in the CIA model and is classified as a High threat
    due to it's ability to bring down the system. The fix appeals to an input validation strategy and distrusts the memory allocation of another function.
    It does so by stepping through the memory to ensure that adequate space exists in the shared memory.
  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.
nickname: 
reported: 
announced: '2016-12-20'
published: 
subsystem:
  name: authentication and authorization
  answer: Based on the description in the file
  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.
discovered:
  date: '2016-07-11'
  answer: 'This vulnerability was discovered by Maksim Malyutin.

    '
  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 this part blank.
  automated: false
description: |
  A remote attacker could write malicious input to a data stream that would cause
  the server to crash. Once the server is crashed, subsequently valid requests will continue to crash
  the server.
unit_tested:
  fix: false
  code: false
  answer: |
    From looking at the code fix and commits between the vcc and fix it is unclear if testing was being used. This file
    was not being regularly updated was the commits between the vcc and fix were miscellaneous and did not revolve around testing.
  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.
specification:
  answer: 
  answer_note: 
  instructions: |
    Is there mention of a violation of a specification? For example,
    an RFC specification, a protocol specification, 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.
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!)
autodiscoverable:
  answer: 
  answer_note: 
  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

    Examples for false: RFC violations, permissions issues, anything
    that requires the 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.
yaml_instructions: 
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: |-
      This commit had the largest functionality change between the vcc and the fix commit.

      It re-wrote much of its thread safety.


      Formerly c391b9d1254eea062cdd4b09b5f9d63993b92b85 before HTTPD rewrote Git history.
    commit: 2e9668a33d7187ef575e17c1a198a515366c0db1
  - note: |-
      A small commit that tried to protect against crashing when a memory allocation call failed. However,

      this change did not account for the real issue of when shared memory was exhausted.


      Formerly a4f6cc505e3a6e9e3568abb1e10aa69bf5a88436 before HTTPD rewrote Git history.
    commit: '0379d363f85530b9f45ae50ff90b32ec298d75e8'
  - note: |-
      Looks like there was a check put in place that was suppose to catch if a device did not have any shared memory.

      The developers handled many different scenarios, such as this one where there is no shared memory,

      but forgot about one in which the shared memory was exhausted.


      Formerly f8c7ff9c993fdcca4967f2de7ad584c907f46317 before HTTPD rewrote Git history.
    commit: cc4511fcf246523e9d1766ac5bb7b82e30febd8c
  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?
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.
nickname_instructions: |
  A catchy name for this vulnerability that would draw attention it. If the
  report mentions a nickname, use that. Must be under 30 characters.
  Optional.
reported_instructions: |
  What date was the vulnerability reported to the security team? Look at the
  security bulletins and bug reports. It is not necessarily the same day that the
  CVE was created.  Leave blank if no date is given.
  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 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.
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 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.