The researcher Pinkie Pie compromised Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S4 devices by exploiting a vulnerability in Chrome.
Achieving remote code execution through a Chrome vulnerability is considered very difficult because of the application sandbox that separates the browser's processes from the operating system.
There have been only a handful of Chrome sandbox escape exploits demonstrated over the years and most of them were presented by researchers at hacking contests. Pinkie Pie hacked Chrome's sandbox two times before in 2012 as part of Google's Pwnium contests.
The researcher's new Chrome exploit chained together an integer overflow vulnerability and a sandbox escape one, earning him a prize of US$50,000.
The standard prize for compromising a mobile device through a Web browser at Mobile Pwn2Own was $40,000, but the Google Chrome Security Team offered a $10,000 bonus if the hacked browser was Chrome running on Nexus 4 or Samsung Galaxy S4.
Pinkie Pie secured the win by demonstrating his exploit on Nexus 4, but then for show, he repeated the feat on Samsung Galaxy S4.
In order for the attack to work the potential victim has to click on a link to a specifically crafted Web page sent via email, SMS or found on another website. Once the malicious page is opened in Chrome, the attack executes without any other user interaction and allows arbitrary code execution on the operating system.
As the contest rules dictate, the vulnerabilities exploited by Pinkie Pie were reported to Google so they can be fixed.
Achieving remote code execution through a Chrome vulnerability is considered very difficult because of the application sandbox that separates the browser's processes from the operating system.
There have been only a handful of Chrome sandbox escape exploits demonstrated over the years and most of them were presented by researchers at hacking contests. Pinkie Pie hacked Chrome's sandbox two times before in 2012 as part of Google's Pwnium contests.
The researcher's new Chrome exploit chained together an integer overflow vulnerability and a sandbox escape one, earning him a prize of US$50,000.
The standard prize for compromising a mobile device through a Web browser at Mobile Pwn2Own was $40,000, but the Google Chrome Security Team offered a $10,000 bonus if the hacked browser was Chrome running on Nexus 4 or Samsung Galaxy S4.
Pinkie Pie secured the win by demonstrating his exploit on Nexus 4, but then for show, he repeated the feat on Samsung Galaxy S4.
In order for the attack to work the potential victim has to click on a link to a specifically crafted Web page sent via email, SMS or found on another website. Once the malicious page is opened in Chrome, the attack executes without any other user interaction and allows arbitrary code execution on the operating system.
As the contest rules dictate, the vulnerabilities exploited by Pinkie Pie were reported to Google so they can be fixed.
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