CVE-2020-15999

Google Chrome FreeType: Heap Buffer Overflow

As of , CVE-2020-15999 in Google Chrome FreeType is on CISA's list of exploited vulnerabilities: CISA listed it on . Our patch-first group: Patch this week.

Exploited
Yes: CISA listed it on 3 November 2021
US federal deadline
17 November 202114 days after CISA listed it. US federal civilian agencies must fix it by then.
Used in ransomware campaigns
Not known to CISA
EPSS score
0.64Higher than 99% of the CVEs EPSS scores. EPSS estimates the chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.
EPSS when listed
Not availableCISA listed it before 4 February 2022, where the EPSS files we read begin.
Public exploit
None foundNeither Metasploit nor Exploit-DB lists one.
Fix
No vendor link in CISA's entry

What CISA says to do

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA's required action

What the flaw is

Google Chrome uses FreeType, an open-source software library to render fonts, which contains a heap buffer overflow vulnerability in the function Load_SBit_Png when processing PNG images embedded into fonts. This vulnerability is part of an exploit chain with CVE-2020-17087 on Windows and CVE-2020-16010 on Android.

CISA's description

Heap buffer overflow in Freetype in Google Chrome prior to 86.0.4240.111 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page.

The CVE record's description, from Chrome

CVE published
3 November 2020
Assigned by
Chrome
CVSS
9.6 Critical (CVSS 3.1, from CISA-ADP)
CWE-120
Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')
CWE-787
Out-of-bounds Write
CISA SSVC, exploitation
active
CISA SSVC, automatable
no
CISA SSVC, technical impact
partial

Timeline

  1. The CVE record was published.
  2. CISA added it to its list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  3. The US federal deadline to fix it.

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