CVE-2019-13706
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to trigger out-of-bounds memory access in Chrome's PDFium PDF rendering engine, potentially leading to heap corruption. Attackers could exploit this by tricking users into opening a malicious PDF file, potentially allowing arbitrary code execution. All users of affected Chrome versions are at risk.
💻 Affected Systems
- Google Chrome
- Chromium-based browsers
📦 What is this software?
Backports Sle by Opensuse
Chrome by Google
Google Chrome is the world's most popular web browser, used by over 3 billion users globally across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS platforms. As a Chromium-based browser developed by Google, Chrome dominates the browser market with approximately 65% market share, making it a critical compon...
Learn more about Chrome →⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Remote code execution with the privileges of the Chrome process, potentially leading to full system compromise if Chrome is running with elevated privileges.
Likely Case
Browser crash (denial of service) or limited code execution within Chrome's sandbox, potentially allowing data theft or further exploitation.
If Mitigated
No impact if Chrome is fully patched or if PDF files are handled by external applications instead of Chrome's built-in PDF viewer.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires user interaction (opening a malicious PDF), but no authentication is needed. The CWE-787 (out-of-bounds write) classification suggests reliable exploitation is possible with sufficient reverse engineering.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 78.0.3904.70 and later
Vendor Advisory: https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2019/10/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_22.html
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Open Chrome. 2. Click the three-dot menu → Help → About Google Chrome. 3. Chrome will automatically check for and install updates. 4. Click 'Relaunch' to restart Chrome with the updated version.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable Chrome's built-in PDF viewer
allForce Chrome to download PDF files instead of opening them internally, preventing exploitation through the vulnerable PDFium component.
chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments → Toggle 'Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome' to ON
Use external PDF application
allConfigure Chrome to open PDFs with an external application like Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader instead of using the built-in PDF viewer.
chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments → Toggle 'Open PDFs in Chrome' to OFF
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Block PDF file downloads at network perimeter or email gateway
- Implement application whitelisting to prevent execution of malicious code from Chrome
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Chrome version: if version is less than 78.0.3904.70, the system is vulnerable.Check Version:
On Windows/macOS/Linux: chrome://version/ or 'google-chrome --version' in terminalVerify Fix Applied:
Confirm Chrome version is 78.0.3904.70 or higher after update.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Chrome crash reports with PDF-related stack traces
- Unexpected Chrome process termination when opening PDF files
Network Indicators:
- Downloads of PDF files from untrusted sources followed by Chrome crashes
SIEM Query:
source="chrome_crash_reports" AND process="chrome" AND module="pdfium" OR source="proxy_logs" AND file_type="pdf" AND user_agent="Chrome/<78.0.3904.70"🔗 References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-01/msg00008.html
- https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2019/10/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_22.html
- https://crbug.com/1001159
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-01/msg00008.html
- https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2019/10/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_22.html
- https://crbug.com/1001159
