angler-fishThe Vulnerability History Project

CVE-2014-9689

Chrome for mobile exposes the device's accelerometer and gyroscope data to all websites on iOS and Andriod. Due to the precise nature of these instruments, with extremely accurate measurements it is theoretically possible for attackers to monitor keystrokes (through the taps on the screen), track users (through movement), and even obtain low frequency speech signals (through the vibrations in the phone). Current technology in mobile devices do not allow for such precise measurements yet.


The mistake they made was not realising the types of vulnerabilities created by giving anyone access to a user's extremely percise gyroscope and accelerometer. When that level of precision is obtained in everyday mobile devices, it should be a permission that the user can give.
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CVE: CVE-2014-9689
CWE:
- 264
bugs:
- 421691
repo: 
vccs:
- note: The issue has been theoretically present sense the creation of the sensors.
  commit: 3cc4db828f71ceb077a6093073f3bfbf449f92ee
fixes:
- note: The fix involved creating a test to make sure the sensors do not go above
    60hz.
  commit: d771a782774564197c9c4d3ddd07605e53397a12
bounty:
  date: 
  amount: 
  references: []
lessons:
  yagni:
    note: Because the device's sensors were extremely percise, these vulnerabilities
      were present.
    applies: true
  question: |
    Are there any common lessons we have learned from class that apply to this
    vulnerability? In other words, could this vulnerability serve as an example
    of one of those lessons?

    Leave "applies" blank or put false if you did not see that lesson (you do
    not need to put a reason). Put "true" if you feel the lesson applies and put
    a quick explanation of how it applies.

    Don't feel the need to claim that ALL of these apply, but it's pretty likely
    that one or two of them apply.

    If you think of another lesson we covered in class that applies here, feel
    free to give it a small name and add one in the same format as these.
  serial_killer:
    note: 
    applies: 
  complex_inputs:
    note: 
    applies: 
  distrust_input:
    note: 
    applies: 
  least_privilege:
    note: A lot of the suggested fixes were to ask for permission instead of giving
      it out by default. Altough this isn't what was implemented, it could have been
      a fix.
    applies: true
  native_wrappers:
    note: 
    applies: 
  defense_in_depth:
    note: 
    applies: 
  secure_by_default:
    note: 
    applies: 
  environment_variables:
    note: 
    applies: 
  security_by_obscurity:
    note: 
    applies: 
  frameworks_are_optional:
    note: 
    applies: 
reviews:
- 870053009
upvotes: 3
mistakes:
  answer: |
    The mistake they made was not realising the types of vulnerabilities created by giving anyone access
    to a user's extremely percise gyroscope and accelerometer. When that level of precision is obtained
    in everyday mobile devices, it should be a permission that the user can give.
  question: |
    In your opinion, after all of this research, what mistakes were made that
    led to this vulnerability? Coding mistakes? Design mistakes?
    Maintainability? Requirements? Miscommunications?

    Look at the CWE entry for this vulnerability and examine the mitigations
    they have written there. Are they doing those? Does the fix look proper?

    Use those questions to inspire your answer. Don't feel obligated to answer
    every one. Write a thoughtful entry here that those ing the software
    engineering industry would find interesting.
announced: '2014-08-20'
subsystem:
  name: device sensors
  answer: The device sensors were made less accurate.
  question: |
    What subsystems was the mistake in?

    Look at the path of the source code files code that were fixed to get
    directory names. Look at comments in the code. Look at the bug reports how
    the bug report was tagged. Examples: "clipboard", "gpu", "ssl", "speech", "renderer"
discovered:
  date: '2014-10-09'
  answer: "A couple of studies were conducted to gather information on the user using
    the accelerometer\nand gyroscope. A google employee created the issue later on.
    \nhttps://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/10/10/stanford-researchers-discover-alarming-method-for-phone-tracking-fingerprinting-through-sensor-flaws/\nhttps://crypto.stanford.edu/gyrophone/files/gyromic.pdf\n"
  google: true
  contest: 
  question: |
    How was this vulnerability discovered?

    Go to the bug report and read the conversation to find out how this was
    originally found. Answer in longform below in "answer", fill in the date in
    YYYY-MM-DD, and then determine if the vulnerability was found by a Google
    employee (you can tell from their email address). If it's clear that the
    vulenrability was discovered by a contest, fill in the name there.

    The "automated" flag can be true, false, or nil.
    The "google" flag can be true, false, or nil.

    If there is no evidence as to how this vulnerability was found, then you may
    leave the entries blank except for "answer". Write down where you looked in "answer".
  automated: 
description: |
  Chrome for mobile exposes the device's accelerometer and gyroscope data to all websites
  on iOS and Andriod. Due to the precise nature of these instruments, with extremely accurate
  measurements it is theoretically possible for attackers to monitor keystrokes (through the
  taps on the screen), track users (through movement), and even obtain low frequency speech
  signals (through the vibrations in the phone). Current technology in mobile devices
  do not allow for such precise measurements yet.
unit_tested:
  fix: true
  code: true
  answer: A new test was made to ensure device motion events are delivered at 60Hz
    instead of unlimited
  question: |
    Were automated unit tests involved in this vulnerability?
    Was the original code unit tested, or not unit tested? Did the fix involve
    improving the automated tests?

    For the "code" answer below, look not only at the fix but the surrounding
    code near the fix and determine if and was there were unit tests involved
    for this module.

    For the "fix" answer below, check if the fix for the vulnerability involves
    adding or improving an automated test to ensure this doesn't happen again.
major_events:
  answer: No major events happend at this time.
  events:
  - date: 
    name: 
  - date: 
    name: 
  question: |
    Please record any major events you found in the history of this
    vulnerability. Was the code rewritten at some point? Was a nearby subsystem
    changed? Did the team change?

    The event doesn't need to be directly related to this vulnerability, rather,
    we want to capture what the development team was dealing with at the time.
curation_level: 1
CWE_instructions: |
  Please go to cwe.mitre.org and find the most specific, appropriate CWE entry
  that describes your vulnerability. (Tip: this may not be a good one to start
  with - spend time understanding this vulnerability before making your choice!)
bounty_instructions: |
  If you came across any indications that a bounty was paid out for this
  vulnerability, fill it out here. Or correct it if the information already here
  was wrong. Otherwise, leave it blank.
interesting_commits:
  answer: 'They did a lot of visualizations for the different sensors in this time.

    '
  commits:
  - note: 
    commit: 
  - note: 
    commit: 
  question: |
    Are there any interesting commits between your VCC(s) and fix(es)?

    Write a brief (under 100 words) description of why you think this commit was
    interesting in light of the lessons learned from this vulnerability. Any
    emerging themes?

    If there are no interesting commits, demonstrate that you completed this section by explaining what happened between the VCCs and the fix.
curated_instructions: |
  If you are manually editing this file, then you are "curating" it. Set the
  entry below to "true" as soon as you start. This will enable additional
  integrity checks on this file to make sure you fill everything out properly.
  If you are a student, we cannot accept your work as finished unless curated is
  set to true.
upvotes_instructions: |
  For the first round, ignore this upvotes number.

  For the second round of reviewing, you will be giving a certain amount of
  upvotes to each vulnerability you see. Your peers will tell you how
  interesting they think this vulnerability is, and you'll add that to the
  upvotes score on your branch.
announced_instructions: |
  Was there a date that this vulnerability was announced to the world? You can
  find this in changelogs, blogs, bug reports, or perhaps the CVE date. A good
  source for this is Chrome's Stable Release Channel
  (https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/).
  Please enter your date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
fixes_vcc_instructions: |
  Please put the commit hash in "commit" below (see my example in
  CVE-2011-3092.yml). Fixes and VCCs follow the same format.
description_instructions: |
  You can get an initial description from the CVE entry on cve.mitre.org. These
  descriptions are a fine start, but they can be kind of jargony.

  Rewrite this description in your own words. Make it interesting and easy to
  read to anyone with some programming experience. We can always pull up the NVD
  description later to get more technical.

  Try to still be specific in your description, but remove Chromium-specific
  stuff. Remove references to versions, specific filenames, and other jargon
  that outsiders to Chromium would not understand. Technology like "regular
  expressions" is fine, and security phrases like "invalid write" are fine to
  keep too.

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