Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 MSHTML CDispNode::InsertSiblingNode Use-After-Free
Posted on 09 December 2016
Since November I have been releasing details on all vulnerabilities I found that I have not released before. This is the twenty-eighth entry in the series. This information is available in more detail on my blog at http://blog.skylined.nl/20161208001.html. There you can find a repro that triggered this issue in addition to the information below. Today's release is again not very interesting, because it also was one of the first bugs I found and reported back in 2012, before I had developed the tools and skills to properly analyze MSIE bugs. This report is therefore very scarce in information. I did get some more details from EIP about the root cause, which I've included. If you find this information useful, and would like to help me make time to continue releasing this kind of information, you can make a donation in bitcoin to 183yyxa9s1s1f7JBpAPHPmzAQ346y91Rx5DX. Follow me on http://twitter.com/berendjanwever for daily browser bugs. MSIE 9 MSHTML CDispNode::InsertSiblingNode use-after-free ========================================================= (MS13-037, CVE-2013-1306) Synopsis -------- A specially crafted web-page can trigger a memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer 9. I did not investigate this vulnerability thoroughly, so I cannot speculate on the potential impact or exploitability. Known affected software and attack vectors ------------------------------------------ * Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 An attacker would need to get a target user to open a specially crafted web-page. JavaScript does not appear to be required for an attacker to triggering the vulnerable code path. Details ------- This bug was found back when I had very little knowledge and tools to do analysis on use-after-free bugs, so I have no details to share. The EIP provided me with some details of their analysis, which I'll paraphrase here: It is a use-after-free vulnerability where the span object in the frame.html file is reused after being freed. It appears to be impossible to reallocate the freed memory before it is reused. Part of the freed memory is overwritten when it is freed because a WORD `FreeEntryOffset` value is stored at offset 0. This value is then used as part of a pointer to a vftable in order to call a method. This pointer now consist of the upper 16-bits of the old vftable and the lower 16-bits contain the `FreeEntryOffset` value. Exploitation is near impossible without a way to have more control over this pointer in the freed memory block. ZDI also did a more thorough analysis and [provide very similar details in their advisory at http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-13-082/ Time-line --------- * 27 September 2012: This vulnerability was found through fuzzing. * 3 October 2012: This vulnerability was submitted to EIP. * 11 October 2012: This vulnerability was rejected by EIP. * 2 November 2012: This vulnerability was submitted to ZDI. * 19 November 2012: This vulnerability was acquired by ZDI. * 22 January 2013: This vulnerability was disclosed to Microsoft by ZDI. * 29 May 2013: Microsoft addresses this vulnerability in MS13-037. * 8 December 2016: Details of this vulnerability are released. Cheers, SkyLined Repro.html <html> <body onload="location.reload();"> <iframe src="Frame.html"></iframe> </body> </html> Frame.html <!doctype html> <html> <head> <style type="text/css"> .x{ display:table-caption; } .x:first-line{ text-transform:uppercase; } </style> </head> <body> <a> <span class="x"> <a> </a> </span> </a> </body> </html>
