Micropatching MSHTML Remote Code Execution Issue (CVE-2021-33742)

 

 

by Mitja Kolsek, the 0patch Team

June 2021 Windows Updates brought a fix for CVE-2021-33742, a remote code execution in the MSHTML component, exploitable via Microsoft browsers and potentially other applications using this component, e.g. via a malicious Microsoft Word document. Discovery of this issue was attributed to Clément Lecigne of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, while Google's security researcher Maddie Stone wrote a detailed analysis. A short proof-of-concept (see Maddie's article) that causes access violation in the browser was written by Ivan Fratric of Google Project Zero.

Our tests showed that out of the Windows versions that we have "security adopted", we were only able to reproduce the vulnerability on Windows 10 v1803 and v1809, so these were the ones we wanted to create a micropatch for.

After reproducing the vulnerability, we looked at Microsoft's patch to see if we could do something similar for the two affected Windows 10 versions that haven't received the official vendor fix.

 

 

As seen on the above image, Microsoft has just added a check to see if the user-influenced value (size of TextData element) that caused memory corruption was greater than 0x1FFFFFFF. If so, it triggers an assertion and effectively crashes the process without trying to resolve the situation. This is a bit unusual as it implies that either (a) Microsoft found it extremely difficult to fix this issue at some root level, issue a JavaScript exception and keep the process running, or (b) they wanted to get this over with quickly because Internet Explorer is hardly supported anymore and MSHTML, while still being used by other applications such as Microsoft Word, is not a critical component for their most important customers.

Be it as it may, our micropatch does the same as looking for a better fix could take us down a rabbit hole for a long time. However, it also records an "Exploit Blocked" event to the local 0patch log so an attack will leave a trace.

Source code of our micropatch:

MODULE_PATH "..\Affected_Modules\mshtml.dll_11.0.17134.2208_32bit_Win10v1803-u202105\mshtml.dll"
PATCH_ID 667
PATCH_FORMAT_VER 2
VULN_ID 7139
PLATFORM win32
patchlet_start
    PATCHLET_ID 1
    PATCHLET_TYPE 2
    PATCHLET_OFFSET 0x4498d0
    N_ORIGINALBYTES 5
    JUMPOVERBYTES 0
    PIT mshtml!0x75e4f0
    ;0x75e4f0 -> Release_Assert
    
    code_start
        mov eax, ebx            ;Get the size of the string       
        cmp eax, 2000000h       ;Check if the string is shorter than 0x2000000
        jl NOEXPLOIT            ;If it's shorter, continue
        call PIT_ExploitBlocked ;If not shorter, show the popup
        setl cl                 ;flag that controls the behavior of Release_Assert function.
                                ;If it's 0, the function does nothing.
        call PIT_0x75e4f0       ;Call Release_Assert
        NOEXPLOIT:
    code_end
    
patchlet_end
   

 

And the video of our patch in action. Note that in contrast to a typical micropatch that prevents the process from crashing, this micropatch - doing exactly the same as Microsoft's fix - lets the process crash in a controlled, unexploitable way in case an overly long string is encountered.

This micropatch was written for: 

1. Windows 10 v1809 (updated with May 2021 Updates - latest before end of support) 
2. Windows 10 v1803 (updated with May 2021 Updates - latest before end of support)

 

To obtain the micropatch and have it applied on your computer(s) along with other micropatches included with a PRO license, create an account in 0patch Central, install 0patch Agent and register it to your account. Note that no computer restart is needed for installing the agent or applying/un-applying any 0patch micropatch. For a 0patch trial, contact sales@0patch.com. 

We'd like to thank Clément Lecigne, Maddie Stone and Ivan Fratric of Google for finding this issue and sharing details, which allowed us to create a micropatch and protect our users.

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