Vulnerability in Tencent WeChat custom browser could lead to remote code execution

Vulnerability in Tencent WeChat custom browser could lead to remote code execution

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Certain versions of WeChat, a popular messaging app created by tech giant Tencent, contain a type confusion vulnerability that could allow an adversary to execute remote code. While this issue, CVE-2023-3420, was disclosed and patched in the V8 engine in June 2023, the WeChat Webview component was not updated, and still remained vulnerable when Talos reported to the vendor in April 2024.  Cisco Talos researchers have confirmed that WeChat versions up to 8.0.42 (the latest version on the Google Play store for Android devices before June 14, 2024) were vulnerable to this issue. However, due to the dynamic WebView loading mechanism, Talos cannot confirm if it’s patched on all versions. Talos reported the vulnerability to Tencent WeChat on April 30, 2024, and continued our investigation in the following weeks and months. 

Vulnerability overview 

WeChat is an instant messenger application with a large user base in China. It also offers users the ability to pay for certain products through the app and includes several functionalities similar to other social media platforms like Facebook and X. 

During Cisco Talos’ research of WeChat, we uncovered that it employs a custom WebView component instead of relying on the built-in Android WebView. This component is a custom version of XWalk, maintained by Tencent, which consists of an embedded Chromium browser with V8 version 8.6.365.13 released on Oct. 12, 2020, supporting the rendering of HTML and the execution of JavaScript. 

The custom WebView component is dynamically downloaded onto the phone after the user logs into the app for the first time, allowing Tencent to deploy dynamic updates. When downloaded, XWalk webview is located at the path `/data/data/com.tencent.mm/app_xwalk_4433/apk/base.apk`. The library at /data/data/com.tencent.mm/app_xwalk_4433/extracted_xwalkcore/libxwebcore.so contains an embedded browser environment with an outdated version of V8.  

GitHub Security Labs published detailed analysis of this vulnerability, CVE-2023-3420, for V8 version 11.4.183.19 in June 2023.      

How can the exploit be triggered? 

The exploit, which we have seen in the wild,  is triggered when the victim clicks a URL in a malicious WeChat message. Clicking a URL in WeChat causes the webpage with embedded JavaScript to be loaded inside XWalk, which triggers exploitation. A so called one-click exploit. 

What is the impact of this vulnerability? 

The exploit allows the threat actor to gain control of the victim’s device and execute arbitrary code. 

CVSSv3 Score: 8.8 – CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H  

How do I know if I’m impacted? 

Talos has confirmed the WeChat version 8.0.42 (the latest version available on the Play Store before June 14) is impacted. For WeChat using the impacted custom browser (MMWEBID/2247), the user agent of request includes the version information of the custom browser. For example: 

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 14; Pixel 6 Build/UQ1A.240105.002; wv) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/86.0.4240.99 XWEB/4433 MMWEBSDK/20230805 Mobile Safari/537.36 MMWEBID/2247 MicroMessenger/8.0.42.2428(0x28002A48) WeChat/arm64 Weixin GPVersion/1 NetType/4G Language/en ABI/arm64  

What do I do if I’m impacted? 

Update to the latest version of WeChat and confirm XWalk is updated as well (in our testing, the app does not get updated to the latest version automatically right after the update is released). Alternatively, do not click on any links sent over WeChat if using the impacted versions. If you must read links, copy the link from the WeChat chat and open them on an updated web browser outside the application. We recommend WeChat users be aware of the URL links sent in WeChat. Before clicking the URL links, verify it’s from a trusted source.  

Bug report Timeline 

April 30, 2024: Disclosed to vendor while research was ongoing. May 31, 2024: Tencent acknowledges report and confirms they know about the vulnerability and are working on patching it. June 14, 2024: New version of WeChat 8.0.48 released on Play Store. However, the app on our testing device did not get automatically updated.  June 27, 2024: Notified Vendor of our intention to publish. 

Credit 

Chi En Shen (Ashley Shen), Vitor Ventura, Michael Gentile and Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos.  

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