Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Microsoft Windows XP/2003/Vista memory corruption 0day


From: Alexander Sotirov <asotirov () determina com>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:20:25 -0800

3APA3A wrote:
AS> The  HardError  message  is handled by the UserHardError function in
AS> WINSRV.DLL. It calls GetHardErrorText to read the message parameters
AS> from  the address space of the sender. The GetHardErrorText function
AS> returns  pointers to the caption and text of the message box. If the
AS> caption  or text parameters start with the \??\ prefix, the function
AS> inexplicably frees the buffer and returns a pointer to freed memory.
AS> After  the  message  box  is  closed by the user, the same buffer is
AS> freed  again  in  the  FreePhi  function, resulting in a double free
AS> vulnerability.

I  may  be  wrong, but probably this fact doesn't explain the garbage on
the  screen in MessageBox. Even "use after free()" vulnerability doesn't
explain  it, because garbage is permanent. There should be some more bug
before second free().

The buffer that contains the caption and text of the message box is freed before
the message box is displayed. The freed memory is allocated again and
overwritten with other data. Displaying this other data as a unicode string
results in garbage in the message box.

Alex

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/


Current thread: