Google Online Security Blog: August 2016

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20220523021231/https://security.googleblog.com/2016/08/

Guided in-process fuzzing of Chrome components

August 5, 2016

Posted by Max Moroz, Chrome Security Engineer and Kostya Serebryany, Sanitizer TsarAddressSanitizerClusterFuzzSyzyASANThreadSanitizerotherslibFuzzerLLVMin-process, coverage-guided, white-box fuzzing

By in-process, we mean that we don’t launch a new process for every test case, and that we mutate inputs directly in memory.

By coverage-guided, we mean that we measure code coverage for every input, and accumulate test cases that increase overall coverage.

By white-box, we mean that we use compile-time instrumentation of the source code.

LibFuzzer makes it possible to fuzz individual components of Chrome. This means you don’t need to generate an HTML page or network payload and launch the whole browser, which adds overhead and flakiness to testing. Instead, you can fuzz any function or internal API directly. Based on our experience, libFuzzer-based fuzzing is extremely efficient, more reliable, and usually thousands of times faster than traditional out-of-process fuzzing.
Our goal is to have fuzz testing for every component of Chrome where fuzzing is applicable, and we hope all Chromium developers and external security researchers will contribute to this effort.
How to write a fuzz target
With libFuzzer, you need to write only one function, which we call a target function or a fuzz target. It accepts a data buffer and length as input and then feeds it into the code we want to test. And... that’s it!
The fuzz targets are not specific to libFuzzer. Currently, we also run them with AFL, and we expect to use other fuzzing engines in the future.
Sample Fuzzer

extern "C" int LLVMFuzzerTestOneInput(const uint8_t* data, size_t size) {
std::string buf;
woff2::WOFF2StringOut out(&buf);
out.SetMaxSize(30 * 1024 * 1024);
woff2::ConvertWOFF2ToTTF(data, size, &out);
return 0;
}
See also the build rule.
Sample Bug

==9896==ERROR: AddressSanitizer: heap-buffer-overflow on address 0x62e000022836 at pc 0x000000499c51 bp 0x7fffa0dc1450 sp 0x7fffa0dc0c00

WRITE of size 41994 at 0x62e000022836 thread T0

SCARINESS: 45 (multi-byte-write-heap-buffer-overflow)

#0 0x499c50 in __asan_memcpy

#1 0x4e6b50 in Read third_party/woff2/src/buffer.h:86:7

#2 0x4e6b50 in ReconstructGlyf third_party/woff2/src/woff2_dec.cc:500

#3 0x4e6b50 in ReconstructFont third_party/woff2/src/woff2_dec.cc:917

#4 0x4e6b50 in woff2::ConvertWOFF2ToTTF(unsigned char const*, unsigned long, woff2::WOFF2Out*) third_party/woff2/src/woff2_dec.cc:1282

#5 0x4dbfd6 in LLVMFuzzerTestOneInput testing/libfuzzer/fuzzers/convert_woff2ttf_fuzzer.cc:15:3

Check out our documentation for additional information.

Integrating LibFuzzer with ClusterFuzzClusterFuzzexamplesEfficient Fuzzer Guide

AddressSanitizer (ASan): 500 GCE VMs

MemorySanitizer (MSan): 100 GCE VMs

UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan): 100 GCE VMs

Sample Fuzzer Statistics

It’s important to track and analyze performance of fuzzers. So, we have this dashboard to track fuzzer statistics, that is accessible to all chromium developers:

Overall statistics for the last 30 days:

120 fuzzers
112 bugs filed
Aaaaaand…. 14,366,371,459,772 unique test inputs!

Analysis of the bugs found so far

Looking at the 324 bugs found so far, we can say that ASan and MSan have been very effective memory tools for finding security vulnerabilities. They give us comparable numbers of crashes, though ASan crashes usually are more severe than MSan ones. LSan (part of ASan) and UBSan have a great impact for Stability - another one of our 4 core principles.

Extending Chrome’s Vulnerability Reward Program

Under Chrome's Trusted Researcher Program, we invite submission of fuzzers. We run them for you on ClusterFuzz and automatically nominate bugs they find for reward payments.

Today we're pleased to announce that the invite-only Trusted Researcher Program is being replaced with the Chrome Fuzzer Program which encourages fuzzer submissions from all, and also covers libFuzzer-based fuzzers! Full guidelines are listed on Chrome’s Vulnerability Reward Program page.

New research: Zeroing in on deceptive software installations

August 4, 2016

Posted by Kurt Thomas, Research Scientist and Juan A. Elices Crespo, Software Engineerprotect users from unwanted softwareunwanted ad injectorsbrowser settings hijackersNYU Tandon School of Engineeringread hereUSENIX Security SymposiumBehind the scenes of unwanted software distribution

Software bundle installation dialogue. Accepting the express install option will cause eight other programs to be installed with no indication of each program’s functionality.

Advertisers: In pay-per-install lingo, advertisers are software developers, including unwanted software developers, paying for installs via bundling. In our example above, these advertisers include Plus-HD and Vuupc among others. The cost per install ranges anywhere from $0.10 in South America to $1.50 in the United States. Unwanted software developers will recoup this loss via ad injection, selling search traffic, or levying subscription fees. During our investigation, we identified 1,211 advertisers paying for installs.

Affiliate networks: Affiliate networks serve as middlemen between advertisers looking to buy installs and popular software packages willing to bundle additional applications in return for a fee. These affiliate networks provide the core technology for tracking successful installs and billing. Additionally, they provide tools that attempt to thwart Google Safe Browsing or anti-virus detection. We spotted at least 50 affiliate networks fueling this business.

Publishers: Finally, popular software applications re-package their binaries to include several advertiser offers. Publishers are then responsible for getting users to download and install their software through whatever means possible: download portals, organic page traffic, or often times deceptive ads. Our study uncovered 2,518 publishers distributing through 191,372 webpages.

This decentralized model encourages advertisers to focus solely on monetizing users upon installation and for publishers to maximize conversion, irrespective of the final user experience. It takes only one bad actor anywhere in the distribution chain for unwanted installs to manifest.

What gets bundled?
We monitored the offers bundled by four of the largest pay-per-install affiliate networks on a daily basis for over a year. In total, we collected 446K offers related to 843 unique software packages. The most commonly bundled software included unwanted ad injectors, browser settings hijackers, and scareware purporting to fix urgent issues with a victim’s machine for $30-40. Here’s an example of an ad injector impersonating an anti-virus alert to scam users into fixing non-existent system issues:

Deceptive practices
Taken as a whole, we found 59% of weekly offers bundled by pay-per-install affiliate networks were flagged by at least one anti-virus engine as potentially unwanted. In response, software bundles will first fingerprint a user’s machine prior to installation to detect the presence of “hostile” anti-virus engines. Furthermore, in response to protections provide by Google Safe Browsing, publishers have resorted to increasingly convoluted tactics to try and avoid detection, like the defunct technique shown below of password protecting compressed binaries:

Paired with deceptive promotional tools like fake video codecs, software updates, or misrepresented brands, there are a multitude of deceptive behaviors currently pervasive to software bundling.

Cleaning up the ecosystem
We are constantly improving Google Safe Browsing defenses and the Chrome Cleanup Tool to protect users from unwanted software installs. When it comes to our ads policy, we take quick action to block and remove advertisers who misrepresent downloads or distribute software that violates Google’s unwanted software policy.
Additionally, Google is pushing for real change from businesses involved in the pay-per-install market to address the deceptive practices of some participants. As part of this, Google recently hosted a Clean Software Summit bringing together members of the anti-virus industry, bundling platforms, and the Clean Software Alliance. Together, we laid the groundwork for an industry-wide initiative to provide users with clear choices when installing software and to block deceptive actors pushing unwanted installs. We continue to advocate on behalf of users to ensure they remain safe while downloading software online.

Adding YouTube and Calendar to the HTTPS Transparency Report

August 1, 2016

Posted by Emily Schechter, HTTPS Enthusiastlaunched

Case study: YouTubeYouTube’s two year road to HTTPS

Lots of traffic! Our CDN, the Google Global Cache, serves a massive amount of video, and migrating it all to HTTPS is no small feat. Luckily, hardware acceleration for AES is widespread, so we were able to encrypt virtually all video serving without adding machines. (Yes, HTTPS is fast now.)

Lots of devices! You can watch YouTube videos on everything from flip phones to smart TVs. We A/B tested HTTPS on every device to ensure that users would not be negatively impacted. We found that HTTPS improved quality of experience on most clients: by ensuring content integrity, we virtually eliminated many types of streaming errors.

Lots of requests! Mixed content—any insecure request made in a secure context—poses a challenge for any large website or app. We get an alert when an insecure request is made from any of our clients and eventually will block all mixed content using Content Security Policy on the web, App Transport Security on iOS, and uses CleartextTraffic on Android. Ads on YouTube have used HTTPS since 2014.

We're also proud to be using HTTP Secure Transport Security (HSTS) on youtube.com to cut down on HTTP to HTTPS redirects. This improves both security and latency for end users. Our HSTS lifetime is one year, and we hope to preload this soon in web browsers.
97% for YouTube is pretty good, but why isn't YouTube at 100%? In short, some devices do not fully support modern HTTPS. Over time, to keep YouTube users as safe as possible, we will gradually phase out insecure connections.

We know that any non-secure HTTP traffic could be vulnerable to attackers. All websites and apps should be protected with HTTPS — if you’re a developer that hasn’t yet migrated, get started today.