CVE-2011-1303 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE
Google Chrome before 11.0.696.57 does not properly handle floating objects, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors that lead to a "stale pointer."
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/05/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2011-1303 affects Google Chrome versions prior to 11.0.696.57 and represents a critical memory management flaw that can be exploited to compromise system stability and potentially execute arbitrary code. This issue stems from improper handling of floating point objects within the browser's memory management system, creating conditions where stale pointers can persist in memory after objects have been deallocated. The vulnerability falls under the category of memory corruption flaws that can lead to unpredictable behavior and system instability.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in the browser's handling of floating point arithmetic operations and object lifecycle management. When Chrome processes floating point calculations, it maintains references to memory locations that may become invalid before the system properly cleans up these references. This creates a scenario where stale pointers remain accessible in memory, pointing to locations that may have been reallocated for other purposes. The flaw allows attackers to manipulate the browser's memory state through carefully crafted web content that triggers specific floating point operations, causing the system to reference deallocated memory locations.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risks to users and organizations relying on Chrome as their primary web browser. The potential impacts include both denial of service conditions where the browser crashes or becomes unresponsive, and more severe consequences that could allow remote code execution. Attackers can leverage this flaw by hosting malicious web content that, when loaded in Chrome, triggers the memory corruption scenario. The unspecified nature of the other potential impacts suggests that this vulnerability could be weaponized to bypass security mitigations such as address space layout randomization or data execution prevention mechanisms.
The vulnerability demonstrates characteristics consistent with CWE-122, which describes "Heap-based Buffer Overflow," and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059.007 for "Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript" as attackers would likely use JavaScript to trigger the memory corruption conditions. The attack surface is broad since any web content loaded in Chrome could potentially exploit this flaw, making it particularly dangerous in environments where users access untrusted websites or receive malicious emails with embedded web content. Organizations should note that this vulnerability represents a classic memory safety issue that has been addressed through improved memory management and pointer validation mechanisms in subsequent Chrome releases.
Mitigation strategies should focus on immediate patch deployment to Chrome version 11.0.696.57 or later, which includes memory management improvements that address the stale pointer conditions. Additional defensive measures include implementing web content filtering, using browser security extensions, and maintaining comprehensive monitoring for unusual browser behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts. Security teams should also consider deploying network-based intrusion detection systems that can identify traffic patterns associated with known exploit payloads targeting this vulnerability category. The incident highlights the importance of regular browser updates and proper security hygiene in maintaining defense-in-depth strategies against memory corruption vulnerabilities.