CVE-2010-2902 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE
The SVG implementation in Google Chrome before 5.0.375.125 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/21/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2010-2902 represents a critical memory corruption issue within the Scalable Vector Graphics implementation of Google Chrome browser versions prior to 5.0.375.125. This flaw exists within the browser's rendering engine specifically when processing SVG graphics, creating potential pathways for remote attackers to exploit the system through carefully crafted malicious content. The vulnerability falls under the category of memory corruption issues that can lead to unpredictable behavior and system instability.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from improper handling of SVG elements during the parsing and rendering process. When Chrome encounters malformed or specially crafted SVG content, the browser's memory management mechanisms fail to properly validate input parameters, leading to buffer overflows or other memory corruption conditions. These memory corruption issues can manifest through various attack vectors that leverage the SVG parser's insufficient bounds checking and memory allocation routines. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple denial of service as it may potentially enable more sophisticated attacks depending on the specific memory corruption patterns that occur.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risks to users who browse the internet regularly, particularly in environments where automated attacks or malicious websites are prevalent. The denial of service aspect means that legitimate users could experience browser crashes, application instability, and forced restarts when encountering malicious SVG content. Additionally, the unspecified other impacts suggest potential for privilege escalation or code execution scenarios that could allow attackers to gain unauthorized access to system resources. The vulnerability's remote exploitation capability means that users need not interact directly with malicious content for harm to occur, as simply loading a webpage containing malicious SVG elements could trigger the exploit.
Security professionals should note that this vulnerability aligns with CWE-125, which describes out-of-bounds read conditions in software implementations. The issue also relates to ATT&CK technique T1203, which covers exploitation of remote services through memory corruption vulnerabilities. Organizations should prioritize immediate patching of affected Chrome versions to mitigate the risk of exploitation, as the vulnerability existed in widely used browser versions that were prevalent during 2010. The patch released with Chrome 5.0.375.125 addressed the underlying memory handling issues in the SVG parser and included enhanced input validation mechanisms to prevent similar corruption scenarios from occurring in future implementations.