CVE-2019-13661 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE
UI spoofing in Chromium in Google Chrome prior to 77.0.3865.75 allowed a remote attacker to spoof notifications via a crafted HTML page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/27/2024
The vulnerability CVE-2019-13661 represents a significant user interface spoofing flaw in the Chromium browser engine that affected Google Chrome versions prior to 77.0.3865.75. This security weakness allowed remote attackers to manipulate the browser's notification system through carefully crafted HTML pages, potentially deceiving users into believing they were interacting with legitimate system alerts or security warnings. The issue stems from insufficient validation mechanisms within the browser's notification handling subsystem, creating an avenue for malicious actors to craft deceptive user interfaces that could mislead users about the true nature of their interactions.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the exploitation of improper input sanitization within the browser's notification API. When a malicious webpage attempts to display a notification, the Chromium engine fails to adequately verify the source and content of the notification request, allowing attackers to inject crafted HTML elements that can override or mimic legitimate system notifications. This flaw specifically targets the browser's user interface rendering engine, where notification content is processed and displayed to users without sufficient security checks that would normally prevent such spoofing attempts.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses a substantial risk to end-user security and trust in browser-based applications. Users could be deceived into clicking on malicious links or entering sensitive information when presented with fake security warnings or system alerts that appear legitimate. The attack vector requires only a remote webpage to be loaded, making it particularly dangerous as users could encounter such spoofed notifications while browsing normal websites. This creates a high-impact scenario where user trust in browser security warnings is compromised, potentially leading to successful social engineering attacks and credential theft.
The vulnerability maps to CWE-693, which specifically addresses Protection Mechanism Failure, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566 for spearphishing attacks through social engineering. Organizations should prioritize immediate patching of affected Chrome versions to mitigate this risk, while implementing additional monitoring for suspicious notification behavior. Browser vendors recommend enabling automatic updates to ensure protection against such UI spoofing attacks, as manual patch management can leave systems vulnerable for extended periods. Security teams should also consider user education programs to help identify potentially spoofed notifications and establish incident response procedures for handling notification-based security incidents.