TUCoPS :: Windows :: b1a-1382.htm

Microsoft mshtml.dll CTimeoutEventList::InsertIntoTimeoutList memory leak
Microsoft mshtml.dll CTimeoutEventList::InsertIntoTimeoutList memory leak
Microsoft mshtml.dll CTimeoutEventList::InsertIntoTimeoutList memory leak



Nowadays, the days of ASLR and DEP, any memory leak is welcome.

Yesterday, Stefano Di Paola posted the following tweet
http://twitter.com/WisecWisec/status/17254776077. After elaborating that 
weird behaviour I discovered a flaw in mshtml.dll, exploitable via
Internet Explorer. In VBScript/JScript there are at least two functions
that make use of timers: setTimeout and setInterval. According to the
documentation, the return value should be a Timer ID.In Chrome and FF
this ID is pure sequential (1,2,3,4...) but in IE I was getting "weird"
IDs. Later on I discovered that those IDs turned out to be a heap
address plus a counter.


We are leaking a pointer from a segment of the IE8's default process
heap. But, what is that pointer? Why does it increment everytime I press
the button? Let's see the technical analysis:

Inside CWindow's constructor (mshtml's standard) a variable "IDEvent",
is initialized to 1
Module: mshtml.dll Vista SP2

.text:7403EC0A                 mov     dword ptr [ecx+30h], 1 ;
TimerID_Counter = 1


Everytime a Timeout event (either created by setInterval or setTimeout )
is created, it's inserted into a list via this function.
Module: mshtml.dll Vista SP2

text:741170E5 ; public: long __thiscall
CTimeoutEventList::InsertIntoTimeoutList(struct TIMEOUTEVENTINFO *,
unsigned int *, int)
.text:741170E5
?InsertIntoTimeoutList@CTimeoutEventList@@QAEJPAUTIMEOUTEVENTINFO@@PAIH@Z proc
near
.text:741170E5    ; CODE XREF: CWindow::AddTimeoutCode(tagVARIANT
*,ushort *,long,long,uint *)+73p
.text:741170E5      ; CWindow::FireTimeOut(uint)+14DFB8p

Take a look at this code, this is the key:

Module: mshtml.dll Vista SP2

text:741170E5 ; public: long __thiscall
CTimeoutEventList::InsertIntoTimeoutList

[...]

.text:74117100                 mov     eax, [esi+30h] ;  p->IDEvent
.text:74117103                 mov     ecx, [ebp+arg_0] ; TimerEvent *t;
.text:74117106                 add     eax, esi        ; s = p +
p->IDEvent; // Oops!
.text:74117108                 mov     [ecx+0Ch], eax   ; t->ID = s
.text:7411710B                 inc     dword ptr [esi+30h] p->IDEvent++
What's going on here?

Well,my theory is that in an effort to not return a plain
sequential/predictable ID, Microsoft decided to add a "magic" value.
Unfortunately, this "magic" value is a pointer member of the CWindow
object which ultimately represents an open browser's window. Thus we can
define it as persistent in memory even after reloading, till the
Browser's instance is closed.
Taking into accout that IDEvent is predictable and we know the pointer
offset, we can trivially infer the pointer to the persistent CWindow
object(leakedPointer - ID_Counter - 0x3c). This fact brings us useful
addresses for ROP/Anti-ASLR exploits. :)

06930dd8  6b0253f8 mshtml!CWindow::`vftable'
06930ddc  00000004
06930de0  00000008
06930de4  070f5720
06930de8  00000000
06930dec  6b028ad8 mshtml!CWindow::`vftable'
06930df0  6b04de30 mshtml!CWindow::`vftable'
06930df4  6aff257c mshtml!CWindow::`vftable'
06930df8  6aff2220 mshtml!CWindow::`vftable'
06930dfc  6aff25a0 mshtml!CWindow::`vftable'
06930e00  068ee3b0
06930e04  00000000
06930e08  068f4aa8
06930e0c  06926be0
06930e10  00000000
06930e14  6b01f5a4 mshtml!CDataAry::`vftable'
06930e18  00000000
06930e1c  00000000
06930e20  00000000
06930e24  6b01f5a4 mshtml!CDataAry::`vftable'
06930e28  00000000
06930e2c  00000000
06930e30  00000000
06930e34  6b01f5a4 mshtml!CDataAry::`vftable'
06930e38  00000000
06930e3c  00000000
06930e40  00000000
06930e44  00000001
06930e48  00000000
06930e4c  00000000
06930e50  00000000
06930e54  00000000


Products affected: XP/Vista/Windows7 32/64 bit. IE8. IE9 is not vulnerable.

Download PoC code
http://www.reversemode.com/downloads/mshtml_leak_poc.zip 

Elaborate it as you desire and share it! Happy hunting!

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