Section 18.176 Race Conditions

Question 1

Race Condition

Answer 1

Software vulnerabilities related to the order and timing of events in concurrent processes

■ Exploiting race conditions allows attackers to disrupt intended program behavior and gain unauthorised access

■ Race conditions occur when multiple threads or processes access and manipulate shared resources simultaneously

Question 2

Dereferencing

Answer 2

Software vulnerability that occurs when the code attempts to remove the
relationship between a pointer and the thing that the pointer was pointing to in the memory which allows changes to be made

■ Vulnerabilities stem from unexpected conflicts and synchronisation issues

Question 3

Exploiting Race Conditions

Answer 3

Attackers exploit race conditions by timing their actions to coincide with
vulnerable code execution

■ Exploitation may lead to unauthorized access, data manipulation, or system
crashes

Question 4

A real-world example of race condition exploitation

Dirty COW Exploit

Answer 4

Targeted Linux and Android systems, leveraging race conditions in the Copy On Write function

Question 5

Types of Race Conditions

Time-of-Check (TOC)

Answer 5

Attackers manipulate a resource’s state after it is checked but before it is used

● For example, overdrawing a bank account due to a time delay between
checking and transferring funds

Question 6

Types of Race Conditions

Time-of-Use (TOU)

Answer 6

● Attackers alter a resource’s state after it is checked but before it is used

● Focuses on the time when the resource is utilised, rather than the time of the initial check

Question 7

Time-of-Evaluation (TOE)

Answer 7

Attackers manipulate data or resources during the system’s decision-making or evaluation process

● Can lead to incorrect results or unexpected behavior

Question 8

Mitigating Race Conditions

Mutex

Answer 8

Mutually exclusive flag that acts as a gatekeeper to a section of code so that only one thread can be processed at a time

○ Mutexes ensure only one thread or process can access a specific section of code at a time

Properly design and test locks to prevent deadlocks

Question 9

Mitigating Race Conditions

Deadlock

Answer 9

Occurs when a lock remains in place because the process it’s waiting for is
terminated, crashes, or doesn’t finish properly, despite the processing being complete