WININET CHttpHeaderParser::ParseStatusLine out-of-bounds read details

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Throughout November, I plan to release details on vulnerabilities I
found in web-browsers which I've not released before. This is the
eight entry in that series, although this particular vulnerability does
not just affect web-browsers, but all applications that use WININET to
make HTTP requests.

The below information is available in more detail on my blog at
http://blog.skylined.nl/20161110001.html. There you can find a repro
that triggered this issue in addition to the information below.

Follow me on http://twitter.com/berendjanwever for daily browser bugs.

WININET CHttpHeaderParser::ParseStatusLine out-of-bounds read
=============================================================
(MS16-105, CVE-2016-3325)

Synopsis
--------
A specially crafted HTTP response can cause the `CHttpHeaderParser::
ParseStatusLine` method in WININET to read data beyond the end of a
buffer. The size of the read can be controlled through the HTTP
response. An attacker that is able to get any application that uses
WININET to make a request to a server under his/her control may be able
to disclose information stored after this memory block. This includes
Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Known affected versions, attack vectors and mitigations
-------------------------------------------------------
* WININET.dll
  The issue was first discovered in pre-release Windows 10
  fbl_release.140912-1613, which contained WININET.DLL version
  11.00.9841.0.   This vulnerability appears to have been present in
  all versions of Windows 10 since, up until the issue was addressed in
  August 2016. As far as I can tell WININET is widely used by Microsoft
  applications to handle HTTP requests. All these applications may be
  vulnerable to the issue, though it may be hard to exploit in most (if
  not all). No mitigations against the issue are known.

* Microsoft Internet Explorer
  XMLHttpRequest can be used to trigger this issue - I have not tried
  other vectors. To exploit the vulnerability, Javascript is most
  likely required, so disabling Javascript should mitigate it.

* Microsoft Edge
  XMLHttpRequest can be used to trigger this issue - I have not tried
  other vectors. To exploit the vulnerability, Javascript is most
  likely required, so disabling Javascript should mitigate it.

* Microsoft Windows Media Player
  Opening a link to a media file on a malicious server can be used to
  trigger the issue.

Description
-----------
When WININET is processing a `HTTP 100` response, it expects another
HTTP response to follow. WININET stores all data received from the
server into a buffer, uses a variable to store an index into this buffer
to track where it is currently processing data, and uses another
variable to store the length of the remaining data in the buffer.

When processing the headers of the `HTTP 100` request, the code updates
the index correctly, but does not decrement the length variable. When
the code processes the next request, the length variable is too large,
which can cause the code to read beyond the end of the data received
from the server. This may cause it to parse data stored in the buffer
that was previously received as part of the current HTTP response, and
can even cause it to do the same for data read beyond the end of the
buffer. This can potentially lead to information disclosure.

The larger the `HTTP 100` response is, the more bytes the code reads
beyond the end of the data. Here are some example responses and their
effect:

  "HTTP 100\r\n\r\nX" (12 bytes in HTTP 100 response)
    => read "X" and the next 11 bytes in memory as the next response.
  "HTTP 100\r\n\r\nXXXX" (12 bytes in HTTP 100 response)
    => read "XXXX" and the next 8 bytes in memory as the next response.
  "HTTP 100XXX\r\n\r\nX" (15 bytes in HTTP 100 response)
    => read "X" and the next 14 bytes in memory as the next response.
  "HTTP 100XXX........XXX\r\n\r\nX..." (N bytes in HTTP 100 response)
    => read "X" and the next (N-1) bytes in memory as the next response.

Exploit
-------
This issue is remarkably similar to [an issue in HTTP 1xx response
handling I found in Google
Chrome][https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=299892] a
while back. That issue allowed disclosure of information from the main
process' memory through response headers. I attempted to leak some data
using this vulnerability by using the following response:

  "HTTP 100XXX........XXX\r\nHTTP 200 X"

I was hoping this would cause the OOB read to save data from beyond the
end of the `HTTP 200` reponse in the `statusText` property of the
`XMLHttpRequest`, but I did not immediately see this happen; all I got
was "OK" or an empty string.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to reverse the code and investigate
further myself. All VCPs I submitted the issue to rejected it because
they though it was not practically exploitable.

Time-line
---------
* October 2014: This vulnerability was found through fuzzing.
* October-November 2014: This vulnerability was submitted to ZDI,
  iDefense and EIP.
* November-December 2014: ZDI, iDefense and EIP all either reject the
  submission because Windows 10 is in pre-release, or fail to respond.
* August 2015: re-submitted to ZDI, iDefense and EIP, since Windows 10
  is now in public release.
* September-October 2015: ZDI, iDefense and EIP all either reject the
  submission because they do not consider it practically exploitable,
  or fail to respond.
* June 2016: This vulnerability was reported to Microsoft with a 60-day
  deadline to address the issue.
* September 2016: The vulnerability was address by Microsoft in
  MS16-105.
* November 2016: Details of this issue are released.

Cheers,

SkyLined

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