The latest update to Google’s Chrome browser is out, bumping the four-part version number to 104.0.5112.101 (Mac and Linux), or to 104.0.5112.102 (Windows).
According to Google, the new version includes 11 security fixes, one of which is annotated with the remark that “an exploit [for this vulnerability] exists in the wild”, making it a zero-day hole.
The name zero-day is a reminder that there were zero days on which even the most well-informed and proactive user or sysadmin could have been patched ahead of the Bad Guys.
Update details
Details about the updates are scant, given that Google, in common with many other vendors these days, restricts access to bug details “until a majority of users are updated with a fix”.
But Google’s release bulletin explicitly enumerates 10 of the 11 bugs, as follows:
- CVE-2022-2852: Use after free in FedCM.
- CVE-2022-2854: Use after free in SwiftShader.
- CVE-2022-2855: Use after free in ANGLE.
- CVE-2022-2857: Use after free in Blink.
- CVE-2022-2858: Use after free in Sign-In Flow.
- CVE-2022-2853: Heap buffer overflow in Downloads.
- CVE-2022-2856: Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Intents. (Zero-day.)
- CVE-2022-2859: Use after free in Chrome OS Shell.
- CVE-2022-2860: Insufficient policy enforcement in Cookies.
- CVE-2022-2861: Inappropriate implementation in Extensions API.
As you can see, seven of these bugs were caused by memory mismanagement.
A use-after-free vulnerability means that one part of Chrome handed back a memory block that it wasn’t planning to use any more, so that it could be reallocated for use elsewhere in the software…
…only to carry on using that memory anyway, thus potentially causing one part of Chrome to rely on data it thought it could trust, without realising that another part of the software might still be tampering with that data.
Often, bugs of this sort will cause the software to crash completely, by messing up calculations or memory access in an unrecoverable way.
Sometimes, however, use-after-free bugs can be triggered deliberately in order to misdirect the software so that it misbehaves (for example by skipping a security check, or trusting the wrong block of input data) and provokes unauthorised behaviour.
A heap buffer overflow means asking for a block of memory, but writing out more data than will fit safely into it.
This overflows the officially-allocated buffer and overwrites data in the next block of memory along, even though that memory might already be in use by some other part of the program.
Buffer overflows therefore typically produce similar side-effects to use-after-free bugs: mostly, the vulnerable program will crash; sometimes, however, the program can be tricked into running untrusted code without warning.
The zero-day hole
The zero-day bug CVE-2022-2856 is presented with no more detail than you see above: “Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Intents.”
A Chrome Intent is a mechanism for triggering apps directly from a web page, in which data on the web page is fed into an external app that’s launched to process that data.
Google hasn’t provided any details of which apps, or what sort of data, could be maliciously manipulated by this bug…
…but the danger seems rather obvious if the known exploit involves silently feeding a local app with the sort of risky data that would normally be blocked on security grounds.
What to do?
Chrome will probably update itself, but we always recommend checking anyway.
On Windows and Mac, use More > Help > About Google Chrome > Update Google Chrome.
There’s a separate release bulletin for Chrome for iOS, which goes to version 104.0.5112.99, but no bulletin yet [2022-08-17T12:00Z] that mentions Chrome for Android.
On iOS, check that your App Store apps are up-to-date. (Use the App Store app itself to do this.)
You can watch for any forthcoming update announcement about Android on Google’s Chrome Releases blog
The open-source Chromium variant of the proprietary Chrome browser is also currently at version 104.0.5112.101.
Microsoft Edge security notes, however, currently [2022-08-17T12:00Z] say:
August 16, 2022
Microsoft is aware of the recent exploit existing in the wild. We are actively working on releasing a security patch as reported by the Chromium team.
You can keep your eye out for an Edge update on Microsoft’s official Edge Security Updates page.