CVE-2016-7578 in iCloud
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in certain Apple products. iOS before 10.1 is affected. Safari before 10.0.1 is affected. iCloud before 6.0.1 is affected. iTunes before 12.5.2 is affected. tvOS before 10.0.1 is affected. The issue involves the "WebKit" component. It allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) via a crafted web site.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/28/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-7578 represents a critical memory corruption flaw within Apple's WebKit rendering engine that affected multiple Apple operating systems and applications. This vulnerability resides in the core web browsing component responsible for processing and rendering web content across Apple's ecosystem, including iOS, Safari, iCloud, iTunes, and tvOS. The flaw manifests as a heap-based buffer overflow or memory corruption issue that occurs when WebKit processes specially crafted web content, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited through standard web browsing activities without requiring any special privileges or user interaction beyond visiting a malicious website.
The technical nature of this vulnerability aligns with CWE-121, which describes heap-based buffer overflow conditions where insufficient memory allocation occurs during dynamic memory management operations. Attackers can leverage this weakness by hosting malicious web content that, when loaded in a vulnerable WebKit instance, triggers memory corruption patterns leading to arbitrary code execution or application crashes. The vulnerability demonstrates characteristics consistent with the attack pattern described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under technique T1203, specifically targeting web browsers and rendering engines as entry points for exploitation. The memory corruption occurs during the parsing and rendering of web content, particularly when handling complex or malformed HTML, CSS, or JavaScript elements that cause the WebKit engine to allocate insufficient memory for processing the content.
The operational impact of CVE-2016-7578 extends across Apple's entire mobile and desktop ecosystem, affecting users of iOS versions prior to 10.1, Safari versions before 10.0.1, iCloud versions before 6.0.1, iTunes versions before 12.5.2, and tvOS versions before 10.0.1. This broad scope means that successful exploitation could compromise user data, enable persistent access to devices, and potentially allow attackers to escalate privileges within the system. The vulnerability's remote exploitation capability makes it particularly dangerous as it requires no local access or user interaction beyond visiting a malicious website, effectively turning every web browsing session into a potential attack vector. Organizations and individuals using affected versions face significant risk of data breaches, privacy violations, and potential system compromise through this single vulnerability.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2016-7578 primarily focus on immediate software updates and patches provided by Apple to address the underlying memory corruption issue within WebKit. System administrators should prioritize updating all affected Apple products to their latest versions, including iOS 10.1, Safari 10.0.1, iCloud 6.0.1, iTunes 12.5.2, and tvOS 10.0.1. Additional protective measures include implementing web content filtering solutions, disabling JavaScript in browsers when possible, and establishing network monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider deploying security solutions that can detect and block malicious web content before it reaches vulnerable systems, particularly focusing on the specific WebKit memory corruption patterns that characterize this vulnerability. The remediation process should include thorough testing of updated software to ensure compatibility while eliminating the security risk associated with this memory corruption flaw that could enable remote code execution attacks across Apple's entire product portfolio.