ChromeWeb browser · Google

CVE-2013-6166

MEDIUM · 6.8 CVSS v2.0 Published 2014-02-15
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 28.0.1500.95 or later.
See remediation →
77/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Google Chrome before 29 sends HTTP Cookie headers without first validating that they have the required character-set restrictions, which allows remote attackers to conduct the equivalent of a persistent Logout CSRF attack via a crafted parameter that forces a web application to set a malformed cookie within an HTTP response.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Chrome browsers before version 29 fail to validate character-set restrictions on HTTP Cookie headers, allowing malformed cookies to be set via crafted parameters in web application responses. Attackers can exploit this to perform persistent Logout CSRF attacks by forcing browsers to accept malicious cookie values that override or clear authentication cookies.

MitigationUpdate Chrome to version 29 or later; web applications should implement server-side validation of cookie-related parameters and consider SameSite cookie attributes to mitigate CSRF-style attacks.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
ChromeWeb browser
Affected:<= 28.0.1500.95

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
M
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed Chrome version
    Navigate to chrome://settings/help in Chrome browser, or click Help > About Google Chrome to view the version number
    Affected if The displayed version is 28.0.1500.95 or any version below 29.0.0.0
  2. Verify Chrome version via command line
    On Windows, run 'reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\BLBeacon" /v version' or check chrome.exe --version in command prompt. On macOS, run '/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --version'
    Affected if The version output shows 28.x or lower
  3. Confirm character-set cookie handling
    This vulnerability relates to Chrome's handling of malformed Set-Cookie headers with invalid character-set values. The check is version-dependent as the flaw exists in the browser's cookie parsing logic prior to version 29
    Affected if Chrome version is 28.0.1500.95 or earlier

You are affected if your installed Google Chrome browser version is 28.0.1500.95 or any version lower than 29.0.0.0.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 28.0.1500.95
Interim mitigation

Update Chrome to version 29 or later; web applications should implement server-side validation of cookie-related parameters and consider SameSite cookie attributes to mitigate CSRF-style attacks.

Fix this in Chrome Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing1.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
5.0 hours of engineering $890
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,424.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-6166 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2013-6166 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data