CVE-2019-13697 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE
Insufficient policy enforcement in performance APIs in Google Chrome prior to 77.0.3865.120 allowed a remote attacker to leak cross-origin data via a crafted HTML page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/27/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-13697 represents a critical security flaw in Google Chrome's handling of performance APIs that existed prior to version 77.0.3865.120. This issue stems from insufficient policy enforcement mechanisms within the browser's performance monitoring interfaces, creating a pathway for malicious actors to exploit cross-origin data leakage through carefully crafted web pages. The flaw specifically affects the browser's performance measurement capabilities and demonstrates a failure in maintaining proper isolation between different origins within the browser's security model.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in the inadequate enforcement of security policies within Chrome's performance APIs, particularly those related to resource timing and performance monitoring. When a web page attempts to access performance data through these APIs, the browser should enforce strict origin-based restrictions to prevent unauthorized access to data from different domains. However, the vulnerability allows attackers to bypass these restrictions and gather performance metrics that should remain isolated between cross-origin resources. This includes timing information, resource loading data, and other performance-related metrics that can be leveraged to infer sensitive information about the target system or user behavior.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data leakage, as it provides attackers with sophisticated means to perform cross-origin information gathering that could be used for various malicious purposes. Attackers can construct malicious HTML pages that exploit this weakness to collect timing information from different origins, potentially enabling them to perform cache timing attacks, infer user behavior patterns, or even reconstruct sensitive data through statistical analysis of performance metrics. The implications are particularly concerning in environments where Chrome serves as the primary browser for sensitive applications, as this vulnerability could be exploited to undermine the security of web applications that rely on proper cross-origin isolation.
This vulnerability aligns with CWE-284, which addresses inadequate access control mechanisms, and demonstrates the importance of proper security boundaries within browser implementations. The flaw also relates to ATT&CK technique T1059.001, where attackers leverage browser-based scripting to execute malicious code and gather intelligence. Organizations should consider implementing additional network-level protections and monitoring for unusual performance data access patterns. The recommended mitigation involves updating to Chrome version 77.0.3865.120 or later, which includes proper policy enforcement mechanisms for performance APIs. Security teams should also review their browser security policies and consider implementing content security policies that restrict access to performance APIs, particularly in environments where sensitive data processing occurs. The vulnerability highlights the critical need for comprehensive security testing of browser APIs and the importance of maintaining strict isolation between different security contexts within modern web browsers.