The Chrome Sandbox Part 1 of 3: Overview
posted by Mark @ 5/20/2010 08:26:00 PM

Earlier this year, CanSecWest hosted the popular "Pwn2Own" contest, whereby contestants attempt to exploit vulnerabilities they have discovered in popular software packages. The contest has a strong focus on web browsers, and this year, it didn't disappoint: all of the major web browsers were successfully compromised, with the notable exception of Google's Chrome. I believe Chrome's survival was largely due to its integrated sandbox, which aims to isolate the browser from being able to perform any potentially adverse operations on the system upon which it is running. I have been working with Google for the last several months on Chrome, with one of my major charges being a security review of the sandbox and its related components. Therefore, with Google's blessing, I thought I might take some time here to discuss the basic sandbox architecture, the attack surface, and present a few examples of vulnerabilities I uncovered during my time working on it.