Vulnerability Spotlight: Use-after-free condition in Google Chrome could lead to code execution

Wednesday, December 1, 2021 08:20

Marcin Towalski of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability.

Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable use-after-free vulnerability in Google Chrome.

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser — and Chromium is the open-source version of the browser that other software developers use to build their browsers, as well. This specific vulnerability exists in Blink, the main DOM parsing and rendering engine at the core of Chromium. TALOS-2021-1352 (CVE-2021-30625) is a use-after-free vulnerability that triggers if the user opens a specially crafted web page in Chrome. That page could trigger the reuse of previously freed memory, which can lead to arbitrary code execution.

Cisco Talos worked with Google to ensure that this issue is resolved and an update is available for affected customers, all in adherence to Cisco’s vulnerability disclosure policy.

Users are encouraged to update these affected products as soon as possible: Google Chrome, versions 92.0.4515.131 (Stable) and 94.0.4597.1 (Canary). Talos tested and confirmed these versions of Chrome could be exploited by this vulnerability.

The following SNORTⓇ rules will detect exploitation attempts against this vulnerability: 58001 and 58002. Additional rules may be released in the future and current rules are subject to change, pending additional vulnerability information. For the most current rule information, please refer to your Firepower Management Center or Snort.org.