Context Switching Race Condition

Opis

A product performs a series of non-atomic actions to switch between contexts that cross privilege or other security boundaries, but a race condition allows an attacker to modify or misrepresent the product's behavior during the switch.

This is commonly seen in web browser vulnerabilities in which the attacker can perform certain actions while the browser is transitioning from a trusted to an untrusted domain, or vice versa, and the browser performs the actions on one domain using the trust level and resources of the other domain.

Skutki

• Integrity, Confidentiality

  Modify Application Data; Read Application Data

Przykłady podatności

• CVE-2009-1837 Chain: race condition (CWE-362) from improper handling of a page transition in web client while an applet is loading (CWE-368) leads to use after free (CWE-416)
• CVE-2004-2260 Browser updates address bar as soon as user clicks on a link instead of when the page has loaded, allowing spoofing by redirecting to another page using onUnload method. ** this is one example of the role of "hooks" and context switches, and should be captured somehow - also a race condition of sorts **
• CVE-2004-0191 XSS when web browser executes Javascript events in the context of a new page while it's being loaded, allowing interaction with previous page in different domain.
• CVE-2004-2491 Web browser fills in address bar of clicked-on link before page has been loaded, and doesn't update afterward.

Słabość nadrzędna

• CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')

Może też być

• CWE-364 Signal Handler Race Condition

Kiedy powstaje

• Architecture and Design
• Implementation

Dotyczy

Not Language-Specific, Not Technology-Specific

Uwagi

Can overlap signal handler race conditions.

Under-studied as a concept. Frequency unknown; few vulnerability reports give enough detail to know when a context switching race condition is a factor.

Źródła

1. 24 Deadly Sins of Software Security — Michael Howard, David LeBlanc, John Viega, "Sin 13: Race Conditions." Page 205, McGraw-Hill, 2010