Google Chromium Skia: memory corruption flaw under attack

What is affected

Google Chromium Skia is found on ordinary personal computers and phones, so this is not only a problem for companies. If you use it and have not updated since the fix was released, you are exposed.

Google Chromium Skia contains an integer overflow vulnerability that allows a remote attacker, who has compromised the renderer process, to potentially perform a sandbox escape via a crafted HTML page. This vulnerability affects Google Chrome and ChromeOS, Android, Flutter, and possibly other products.

What an attacker can do

This is a memory corruption flaw. It lets an attacker corrupt the program's memory by feeding it specially crafted content: a web page, a file or a network message. The result ranges from a crash to the attacker running their own code.

How it is reached

Over the internet or network

Access the attacker needs

No account needed

Does the victim have to do something?

Yes, the victim must open or click something

What to do

1. Update Google Chromium Skia now. Open the update or "About" screen, install whatever is offered and restart the app or device, because the fix is not active until you do.
2. Turn on automatic updates so the next fix arrives without you having to look for it.
3. If your device is too old to receive this update, stop using the affected app for anything sensitive and plan a replacement.

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Vendor advisories and fixes

• chromereleases.googleblog.comchromereleases.googleblog.com/2023/04/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_18.html

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on April 21, 2023, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by May 12, 2023, a deadline that has already passed. That deadline does not bind anyone else, but it shows how seriously the agency rates it.

The EPSS model estimates a 5.7% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 93% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 9.6 out of 10 (critical), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

Integer overflow in Skia in Google Chrome prior to 112.0.5615.137 allowed a remote attacker who had compromised the renderer process to potentially perform a sandbox escape via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)