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Google "confirms" that exploited Chrome zero-day is actually in libwebp (CVE-2023-5129)

criticalExploit / PoC exploited in the wildimportance 60CVE-2023-5129CVE-2023-4863CVE-2023-41064

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVEVulnerabilityCVSSEPSSFlagsAffectedExposurePublished
CVE-2023-41064
ImageIO Buffer Overflow in Apple iOS, iPadOS, and macOS Allows Code Execution

CVE-2023-41064 is a buffer overflow (CWE-120) in the ImageIO component of Apple iOS, iPadOS, and macOS that is triggered when the system processes a maliciously crafted image. Because ImageIO performs image decoding for messaging and web content, an attacker can reach the flaw through attachments or web pages, and successful exploitation may allow arbitrary code execution on the device. The flaw was exploited in the wild as part of a chain with CVE-2023-41061 (WebKit), which public reporting described as a zero-click, spyware-grade compromise chain used against civil-society targets. All users of iPhones, iPads, and Macs running builds released before Apple's September 2023 fixes are affected, making the exposed population extremely large. The vulnerability was added to the CISA KEV catalog on 2023-09-11, carries a high EPSS score of 45.1% (99th percentile), and no standalone public proof-of-concept is known because exploitation is occurring in real-world attacks rather than labs.

Do: Apply Apple's September 2023 fixes — iOS and iPadOS 16.6.1 or later and macOS Ventura 13.5.2 or later — across all iPhone, iPad, and Mac fleets, which satisfies the CISA KEV required action. Because the observed in-the-wild chain paired this ImageIO bug with the CVE-2023-41061 WebKit flaw, treat unpatched devices as actively targeted and prioritize high-value users and privileged endpoints. If updates cannot be deployed promptly, follow the KEV guidance to apply vendor mitigations or discontinue use of the affected devices.

7.845% KEV
  • Apple iOS
  • Apple iPadOS
  • Apple macOS
masshundreds of millions of devices (Apple's installed base of active iPhones, iPads, and Macs exceeds 1 billion)
CVE-2023-4863
Out-of-Bounds Write in Google Chromium WebP Image Codec Actively Exploited

CVE-2023-4863 is a heap-based buffer overflow (CWE-787) in the WebP image codec used by Google Chromium, allowing a remote attacker to write outside the intended bounds of allocated memory. It is triggered when a user visits a crafted HTML page containing malicious WebP image data, so no authentication or special privileges are required, only that the victim loads attacker-controlled content in an affected application. Successful exploitation gives the attacker an out-of-bounds memory write in the affected process, which can lead to application crashes or memory corruption with the potential for code execution. Exposure is unusually broad because, per the advisory, the flaw can affect any application that uses the WebP codec, meaning the browsing public and any software bundling WebP decoding are plausibly in scope. The flaw was added to the CISA KEV catalog on 2023-09-13, indicating confirmed exploitation in the wild; EPSS assigns it a 100% probability of exploitation within 30 days, ransomware use is unknown, and no public proof-of-concept is known.

Do: Update Google Chrome and all other Chromium-based browsers to the latest stable release containing the WebP fix (the patched Chrome 116.0.5845.187 shipped in September 2023), and update or rebuild any other software that bundles the WebP/libwebp codec (fixed in libwebp 1.3.2). Until patching is complete, treat untrusted web content as the attack vector and, per the CISA KEV required action, apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of affected software if mitigations are unavailable. Verify remediation by checking installed browser and application versions against the vendor advisories.

8.8100% KEV PoC ×4
  • Google Chromium WebP
mass~3+ billion users (Chromium-based browsers account for roughly two-thirds of global browser usage)
CVE-2023-5129
Rejected reason: This CVE ID has been rejected or withdrawn by its CVE Numbering Authority.

Rejected reason: This CVE ID has been rejected or withdrawn by its CVE Numbering Authority. Duplicate of CVE-2023-4863.

NVD description · AI analysis pending
Full article435 words · extracted from helpnetsecurity.com · click to collapse

UPDATE (September 28, 2023, 03:15 a.m. ET):

The CVE-2023-5129 ID has been either rejected or withdrawn by the CVE Numbering Authority (Google), since it’s a duplicate of CVE-2023-4863. The entry for the latter has been broadened to include its impact to the libwebp library.

The Chrome zero-day exploited in the wild and patched by Google a few weeks ago has a new ID (CVE-2023-5129) and a description that tells the whole story: the vulnerability is not in Chrome, but the libwebp library, which is used by many popular applications for encoding/decoding the WebP image format.

About CVE-2023-5129

The source of the vulnerability is a flawed implementation of the Huffman coding algorithm, which may allow attackers to trigger a heap buffer overflow and to execute arbitrary code.

CVE-2023-5129 affects libwebp versions 0.5.0 to 1.3.1, and has been fixed in version 1.3.2. It has received a “perfect” CVSS score (10.0), which means it’s as critical as it can possibly be.

Rezilion researchers have previously posited that CVE-2023-41064, a buffer overflow vulnerability in the ImageI/O framework recently fixed by Apple and exploited to deliver NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, and CVE-2023-4863, the aforementioned Chrome zero-day, are effectively the same flaw.

As it turns out, they were right – hence: CVE-2023-5129.

What now?

Rezilion’s Ofri Ouzan and Yotam Perkal pointed out that the libwebp library can be found in:

  • Popular container images, “collectively downloaded and deployed billions of times” (e.g., drupal, ngnix, perl, python, ruby, rust, wordpress)
  • A variety of utilities that depend on libwebp
  • The most popular web browers (Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, etc.
  • Many Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, Gentoo, SUSE, etc.)
  • The Electron framework, on which many cross-platform desktop applications are based
  • A slew of other applications (including Microsoft Teams, Slack, Discord, LibreOffice, 1Password, Telegram, Signal Desktop, etc.)

Some of these have already incorporated patched for the vulnerability, and some have yet to do it. Hopefully, the rest of the fixes will soon be pushed out.

Consumers should take to heart and implement that often repeated advice: Regularly update your operating system(s) and software.

The good news for enterprises using vulnerability scanners is that they will finally be able to automatically detect and proceed to remediate the vulnerability across their systems.

Tom Sellers, principal research engineer at runZero, has also shared a shell command users can run on macOS to see which of their apps are based on which Electron version (versions 22.3.24, 24.8.3, 25.8.1, 26.2.1 and 27.0.0-beta.2 have the patch).

Threat hunter Michael Taggart has compiled and is updating a list of apps based on Electron, pointing out the version in use.

Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/09/27/cve-2023-5129/