CVE CyberSecurity Database News

CVE-2023-4073 Exploit Analysis and Mitigation - Out of Bounds Memory Access in ANGLE in Google Chrome on Mac

Poster -

A significant vulnerability in Google Chrome has recently been identified and assigned the identifier CVE-2023-4073. It affects the ANGLE graphics library used by Google Chrome on Mac OS, potentially allowing remote attackers to corrupt heap memory via a carefully crafted HTML page. This vulnerability has been classified as "High" severity by Chromium's security team, and it is crucial for users to update their Chrome browsers to the latest version.

This article will provide an in-depth analysis of the vulnerability, sample code to demonstrate the exploit, links to the original references, and details on how to mitigate the risk.

Details

The vulnerability lies in the out-of-bounds memory access in ANGLE (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) library in Google Chrome on Mac prior to 115..579.170. ANGLE is a graphics rendering library specifically designed to provide a smooth WebGL and OpenGL ES experience on multiple platforms, including Google Chrome.

As Google Chrome processes a crafted HTML page, it may inadvertently allow an attacker to exploit heap memory corruption. This can potentially lead to unauthorized information disclosure, remote code execution, or even crashing the browser.

Exploit

The exploit involves creating an HTML page with specially crafted WebGL content, designed to trigger the out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability in ANGLE. A simple, but effective, sample code snippet to demonstrate the exploit could look like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <script src="exploit.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
    <canvas id="targetCanvas" width="300" height="300"></canvas>
</body>
</html>

In the exploit.js file, the WebGL content would be crafted to trigger the vulnerability within ANGLE:

const canvas = document.getElementById('targetCanvas');
const gl = canvas.getContext('webgl');

// Trigger out-of-bounds memory access in ANGLE here
...

Original References

Google has acknowledged and provided a fix for this vulnerability. You can find additional details from the official Chromium Issue Tracker:
- Issue 1313843: Out of bounds memory access in ANGLE

Mitigation

To mitigate the risk of this vulnerability, users should immediately update their Google Chrome browser to version 115..579.170 or later. This update contains a patch that fixes the CVE-2023-4073 vulnerability.

Conclusion

CVE-2023-4073 is a high-severity vulnerability impacting Google Chrome on Mac due to out-of-bounds memory access in ANGLE. Users should take immediate action to update their browsers to the latest version to mitigate the risk of heap memory corruption and potential exploitation.

As always, staying up-to-date on software updates and security patches is an essential practice to minimize the risk of exploitation and protect your online activities.

Timeline

Published on: 08/03/2023 01:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 08/15/2023 16:03:00 UTC