Google on Monday announced a new Chrome security update that addresses four high-severity memory safety vulnerabilities reported by external researchers.
The four issues, tracked as CVE-2024-6290 to CVE-2024-6293, are use-after-free bugs impacting the Dawn and Swiftshader components of the popular browser.
Three of the security defects, all impacting Dawn, were reported by security researcher ‘wgslfuzz’ over the past month, while the fourth was reported by Cassidy Kim in November 2023.
Google handed out a $10,000 bug bounty reward to wgslfuzz for CVE-2024-6290 and a $4,000 one to Kim for CVE-2024-6291, but has yet to determine the amounts to be paid for the other two vulnerabilities.
The latest Chrome iteration is now rolling out to users as version 126.0.6478.126 for Linux and as versions 126.0.6478.126/127 for Windows and macOS. Chrome for Android was also updated with fixes for these flaws and is now available as version 126.0.6478.122.
While Google makes no mention of any of these vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild, users are advised to update their browsers as soon as possible.
Use-after-free issues are related to the incorrect use of dynamic memory during an application’s operations and occur when, after memory allocation is freed, the pointer to that memory is not cleared.
An attacker could exploit the error to execute arbitrary code, corrupt data, or cause denial-of-service conditions. When combined with other vulnerabilities, use-after-free bugs could lead to complete system compromise.
In Chrome, use-after-free issues can be exploited to escape the browser’s sandbox, if the attacker can target a vulnerability in the underlying operating system or in a privileged Chrome process.
For several years, Google has been battling an increasing number of memory safety flaws in Chrome, including with improved protections against use-after-free bug exploitation, and by gradually transitioning to Rust, a memory safe programming language.
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