Overview
The world of cybersecurity has once again been stirred by the discovery of a new vulnerability, CVE-2024-0517, affecting Google Chrome. This vulnerability presents a significant threat to users due to its severity and the widespread usage of Google Chrome, making it a potential target for cybercriminals. The vulnerability resides in V8, Google’s open-source high-performance JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, and could potentially lead to system compromise and data leakage. As such, it is of utmost importance for users and system administrators to understand the vulnerability and apply appropriate mitigations promptly.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2024-0517
Severity: High (8.8 CVSS Severity Score)
Attack Vector: Remote
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise and data leakage
Affected Products
No phone number, email, or personal info required.
Product | Affected Versions
Google Chrome | Prior to 120.0.6099.224
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability is an out-of-bounds write issue that exists in the V8 engine of Google Chrome. An attacker can craft a malicious HTML page that triggers a heap corruption in the V8 engine when processed. Heap corruption, a form of undefined behavior, can lead to program crashes, execution of arbitrary code, or even full control over a system. In this case, it could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser, thereby leading to potential system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
A conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited is shown below. The attacker would craft a malicious HTML page incorporating JavaScript that triggers the heap corruption. Note that this is a simplified representation and actual exploit code would be more complex.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<script>
// Malicious JavaScript code that causes heap corruption in V8
let arr = new Array(1);
arr.length = 4294967295;
arr.fill('CVE-2024-0517 exploit code');
</script>
</body>
</html>In this example, the JavaScript code creates an array and sets its length to a very large number (2^32-1). The ‘fill’ method is then used to fill the array with the exploit code, which triggers heap corruption due to the way V8 handles large arrays. This code would be embedded in a webpage that the attacker entices the victim to visit, thereby causing the victim’s browser to execute the exploit code.