The King of Bugs

One bug to rule them all - IE5,IE6,IE7,IE8,Netscape,Firefox,Safari,Opera,Konqueror,
Seamonkey,Wii,PS3,iPhone,iPod,Nokia,Siemens.... and more.

Reference : [GSEC-TZO-26-2009] - One bug to rule them all
CVE : CVE-2009-1692 (created by Apple, this bug has same root cause)
Credit: Thierry Zoller

Affected products :

• Internet Explorer 5, 6, 7, 8 (all versions)
  
• Chrome (limited)
  
• Opera
  
• Seamonkey
  
• Midbrowser
  
• Netscape 6 & 8 (9 years ago)
  
• Konqueror (all versions)
  
• Apple iPhone + iPod
  
• Apple Safari
  
• Thunderbird
  
• Nokia Phones : Nokia N95 (Symbian OS v.9.2),Nokia N82, Nokia N810 Internet Tablet
  
• Aigo P8860 (Browser hangs and cannot be restarted)
  
• Siemens phones
  
• Google T-Mobile G1 TC4-RC30
  
• Ubuntu (Operating system sometimes reboots, memory management failure)
  
• possibly more devices and products that support Javascript,
  

Patch status :

• Mozilla : Fixed in Firefox 3.0.5 and 2.0.0.19
  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=460713
  
• Thunderbird (unknown)
  
• IE : No fix for IE5,IE6,IE7,IE8 until IE9
  
• Konqueror : unknown (did not respond)
  
• Apple iPhone&iPod : patched
  
• Nokia : unknown, opened a case but never came back
  
• Aigo P8860 : unknown
  
• Siemens : unknown
  
• Chrome : Patched, version unknown (only tab was affected anyways)
  
• Webkit : fixed in r41741 - https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23319
  
• Opera : Patched after version 9.64
  
• Sony PS3 - still affected
• Nintendo Wii Opera - still affected, Opera sent a "notice" to Nintendo, never heard back from Opera
• Others ? Find out by visiting the POC at http://crashthisthing.com/select.html
  

I. Background

Quoting Wikipedia "ECMAScript is a scripting language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used on the web, especially in the form of its three best-known dialects, JavaScript, ActionScript, and JScript."

II. Description

Calling the select() method with a large integer, results in continuous allocation of x+n bytes of memory exhausting memory after a while.

The impact varies from null pointer dereference (no more memory,hence crashing the browser) to the reboot of the complete Operation System (Konqueror&Ubuntu).

There had never been a limit specified as to how many html elements the select call should handle, after the report of this Bug, vendors apparently agreed to a limit of 10.000 elements : "Talked to some Apple and Opera guys at the WHATWG social, and we decided this was a good number"

III. Impact

The impact varies from browser to browser and sometimes from OS to OS

• Konqueror (Ubuntu)- allocates 2GB of memory then either crashes the Browser or (most often) the OS reboots. Ubuntu's memory management system is configured as to NOT stop the process that consumes too much memory, but a random process. This sometimes leads to processes that are vital for the OS to be killed, hence the reboot. I am not kidding. Thanks to 'FX' for the memory management hint.
• Chrome : allocates 2GB of memory then crashes tab with a null pointer
  
  
• Firefox : allocates 2GB of memory then the Browser crashes
  
  
• IE5,6,7,8 : allocates 2GB of memory then the Browser crashes
  
  
• Opera : Allocated and commits as much memory as available, will not crash but other applications will become unstable
  
  
• Nintento WII (Opera) : Console hangs, needs hard reset
  Video: http://vimeo.com/2937101 (Thanks to David Raison)
  
  
• Sony PS3 - Console hangs, needs hard reset
  Video: http://vimeo.com/2937101 (Thanks to Chris Gates)
  
  
• iPhone - iPhone hangs and needs hard reset
  Video: http://vimeo.com/2873339 (Thanks to g0tcha)
  
  
• Aigo P8860 (Browser hangs and cannot be restarted)
  

IV. Proof of concept

URL: http://www.crashthisthing.com/select.html

Some have not understood what this code does, it does NOT loop as some vendors claimed, it just calls select.lenght() ONCE with a huge integer. One might wonder if over the 9 last years that this bug existed, nobody ever entered a large number in a select.lenght() call.

V. Disclosure timeline

Nothing particular to note.

V. Thanks
Chris Gates, David Raison, Fahem Adam,a team of engineers that recognise themselves, oCert
for not helping coordinate this bug.

Note: All trademarks mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.

Courtesy : G-SEC