Critical SQLite Flaw Leaves Millions of Apps Vulnerable to Hackers

Dec 15, 2018

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a critical
vulnerability in widely used SQLite database software that exposes
billions of deployments to hackers.

Dubbed as ‘Magellan‘ by Tencent’s Blade security team,
the newly discovered SQLite flaw could allow remote attackers to
execute arbitrary or malicious code on affected devices, leak
program memory or crash applications.

SQLite is a lightweight, widely used disk-based relational
database management system that requires minimal support from
operating systems or external libraries, and hence compatible with
almost every device, platform, and programming language.

SQLite is the most widely deployed database engine in the world
today, which is being used by millions of applications with
literally billions of deployments, including IoT devices, macOS and
Windows apps, including major web browsers, such as Adobe software,
Skype and more.

Since Chromium-based web browsers—including Google Chrome,
Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave—also support SQLite through the deprecated ^[1]
Web SQL database API, a remote attacker can easily target users of
affected browsers just by convincing them into visiting a specially
crafted web-page.

“After testing Chromium was also affected by this vulnerability,
Google has confirmed and fixed this vulnerability,” the researchers
said in a blog post ^[2].

SQLite has released updated version 3.26.0 of
its software to address the issue after receiving responsible
disclosure from the researchers.

Google has also released Chromium version 71.0.3578.80 to
patch the issue and pushed the patched version to the latest
version of Google Chrome and Brave web-browsers.
^[4]

Tencent researchers said they successfully build a proof-of-concept
exploit using the Magellan vulnerability and successfully tested
their exploit against Google Home.

Since most applications can’t be patched anytime sooner,
researchers have decided not to disclose technical details and
proof-of-concept exploit code to the public.

“We will not disclose any details of the vulnerability at this
time, and we are pushing other vendors to fix this vulnerability as
soon as possible,” the researchers said.

Since SQLite is used by everybody including Adobe, Apple, Dropbox,
Firefox, Android, Chrome, Microsoft and a bunch of other software,
the Magellan vulnerability is a noteworthy issue, even if it’s not
yet been exploited in the wild.

Users and administrators are highly recommended to update their
systems and affected software versions to the latest release as
soon as they become available.

Stay tuned for more information.

^[3]

References

^{^}
deprecated
(developers.google.com)
^{^}
blog post
(blade.tencent.com)
^{^}
version 3.26.0
(www.sqlite.org)
^{^}
71.0.3578.80
(chromereleases.googleblog.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Critical SQLite Flaw Leaves Millions of Apps Vulnerable to Hackers

References

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