CVE-2020-6473 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE
Insufficient policy enforcement in Blink in Google Chrome prior to 83.0.4103.61 allowed a remote attacker to obtain potentially sensitive information from process memory via a crafted HTML page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/06/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2020-6473 represents a critical security flaw within the Blink rendering engine that powers Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers. This issue stems from inadequate policy enforcement mechanisms that fail to properly restrict memory access permissions, creating a pathway for remote attackers to exploit the browser's memory management systems. The vulnerability specifically affects versions of Chrome prior to 83.0.4103.61, indicating that it was a significant concern that required immediate attention from the browser development team.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the exploitation of memory access patterns within the Blink engine's security model. When processing crafted HTML content, the browser fails to enforce proper isolation between different memory regions, allowing malicious code to potentially read sensitive data from process memory spaces. This type of flaw falls under the category of information disclosure vulnerabilities, where attackers can extract confidential information that should normally be protected from unauthorized access. The vulnerability demonstrates a failure in the browser's sandboxing mechanisms that are designed to prevent cross-process memory access and maintain security boundaries between different browser components.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents a substantial risk to users who may encounter malicious web content without realizing the potential for sensitive information extraction. Attackers can craft HTML pages that, when loaded in affected browsers, can access memory locations containing user data, session information, or other confidential content stored in the browser's memory space. The remote nature of this attack means that victims need only visit a compromised website to be vulnerable, making it particularly dangerous in phishing campaigns or when users browse untrusted web content. This vulnerability directly impacts the principle of least privilege and memory protection that are fundamental to secure browser operation.
The security implications of CVE-2020-6473 align with CWE-200, which addresses information exposure, and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1059 for execution through web-based attacks. Organizations and individuals should immediately update to Chrome version 83.0.4103.61 or later to mitigate this vulnerability, as the fix implements proper policy enforcement mechanisms that correctly enforce memory access restrictions. Additional mitigations include implementing web application firewalls, deploying content security policies, and maintaining awareness of phishing attempts that may exploit this vulnerability. The incident underscores the importance of regular security updates and proper memory management in browser security architectures, particularly in the context of modern web applications that increasingly rely on complex rendering engines and memory-intensive operations.