Context Switching Race Condition
Draft Base
Structure: Simple
Description
A product performs a series of non-atomic actions to switch between contexts that cross privilege or other security boundaries, but a race condition allows an attacker to modify or misrepresent the product's behavior during the switch.
This is commonly seen in web browser vulnerabilities in which the attacker can perform certain actions while the browser is transitioning from a trusted to an untrusted domain, or vice versa, and the browser performs the actions on one domain using the trust level and resources of the other domain.
Common Consequences 1
Scope: IntegrityConfidentiality
Impact: Modify Application DataRead Application Data
Observed Examples 4
CVE-2009-1837Chain: race condition (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')) from improper handling of a page transition in web client while an applet is loading (Context Switching Race Condition) leads to use after free (Use After Free)
CVE-2004-2260Browser updates address bar as soon as user clicks on a link instead of when the page has loaded, allowing spoofing by redirecting to another page using onUnload method. ** this is one example of the role of "hooks" and context switches, and should be captured somehow - also a race condition of sorts **
CVE-2004-0191XSS when web browser executes Javascript events in the context of a new page while it's being loaded, allowing interaction with previous page in different domain.
CVE-2004-2491Web browser fills in address bar of clicked-on link before page has been loaded, and doesn't update afterward.
References 1
24 Deadly Sins of Software Security
Michael Howard, David LeBlanc, and John Viega
McGraw-Hill
2010
ID: REF-44
Applicable Platforms
Languages:
Not Language-Specific : Undetermined
Modes of Introduction
Architecture and Design
Implementation
Related Attack Patterns
Related Weaknesses
Taxonomy Mapping
- PLOVER
Notes
RelationshipCan overlap signal handler race conditions.
Research GapUnder-studied as a concept. Frequency unknown; few vulnerability reports give enough detail to know when a context switching race condition is a factor.