RFC-009: Windows Locked File Bypass

Author: moonD4rk Status: Living Document Created: 2026-04-05

1. Problem

Chromium on Windows sets PRAGMA locking_mode=EXCLUSIVE on certain SQLite databases, most notably the Cookies file (Network/Cookies). This means Chrome's process holds the file open with dwShareMode=0 (no sharing), preventing any other process from opening it — even for reading.

Chrome.exe
  → CreateFileW("Network/Cookies", ..., dwShareMode=0)  // exclusive lock
  → PRAGMA locking_mode=EXCLUSIVE

hack-browser-data.exe
  → os.ReadFile("Network/Cookies")
  → ERROR: access denied

This is a Windows-specific problem. On macOS and Linux, SQLite uses fcntl/flock advisory locks, which do not prevent other processes from reading the file. The standard copy path works fine on those platforms.

2. Solution Overview

Bypass the exclusive lock using Windows kernel APIs: enumerate system handles to find Chrome's file handle, duplicate it into our process, then read the file contents via memory-mapped I/O. No admin privileges required.

NtQuerySystemInformation → find Chrome's handle to Cookies file
  → DuplicateHandle into our process
  → CreateFileMappingW + MapViewOfFile (read from kernel cache)
  → write bytes to temp destination

3. Step-by-Step

3.1 Enumerate System Handles

Call NtQuerySystemInformation with SystemExtendedHandleInformation (class 64) to get every open handle in the system. The "extended" variant uses ULONG_PTR for PIDs and handle values, avoiding truncation on 64-bit Windows.

The query starts with a 4 MB buffer and doubles it (up to 256 MB) if the API returns STATUS_INFO_LENGTH_MISMATCH.

Each entry in the result table:

3.2 Find the Target Handle

For each handle entry:

1. OpenProcess(PROCESS_DUP_HANDLE, pid) — open the owning process
2. DuplicateHandle — duplicate the handle into our process with DUPLICATE_SAME_ACCESS
3. GetFileType — verify it is FILE_TYPE_DISK (skip pipes, sockets, etc.)
4. GetFinalPathNameByHandleW — get the full file path

3.3 Path Matching with Short-Name Tolerance

Windows 8.3 short path names (e.g. RUNNER~1 vs runneradmin) cause direct path comparison to fail. The solution extracts a stable suffix by stripping everything before AppData\Local\ or AppData\Roaming\ and comparing in lowercase:

Input:  C:\Users\RUNNER~1\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\...\Network\Cookies
Suffix: google\chrome\...\network\cookies

Input:  C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\...\Network\Cookies
Suffix: google\chrome\...\network\cookies

→ match!

3.4 Read via Memory-Mapped I/O

Once we have a duplicated handle to the locked file:

| DuplicateHandle (read access)                   |
|-------------------------------------------------|
               ↓
| CreateFileMappingW(handle, PAGE_READONLY)       |
|-------------------------------------------------|
               ↓
| MapViewOfFile(mapping, FILE_MAP_READ, fileSize) |
|-------------------------------------------------|
               ↓
| byte slice from kernel file cache               |
| (includes uncommitted WAL data from Chrome)     |
|-------------------------------------------------|
               ↓
| os.WriteFile(destination, bytes, 0600)          |
|-------------------------------------------------|

Memory-mapped I/O reads from the OS kernel's file cache, which includes data Chrome has written but not yet checkpointed to disk. This produces a more complete snapshot than a raw ReadFile.

Fallback: if CreateFileMappingW fails (e.g., the file is empty or zero-length), falls back to Seek(0) + ReadFile on the duplicated handle.

4. Why This Works

The key insight is that dwShareMode=0 only prevents new CreateFileW calls from opening the file. It does not prevent:

• DuplicateHandle — which creates a copy of an existing handle (Chrome's own handle)
• CreateFileMappingW — which operates on a handle we already own
• MapViewOfFile — which reads from the kernel's page cache

This is a documented Windows behavior, not an exploit. The technique requires only standard user privileges because PROCESS_DUP_HANDLE access is available for processes owned by the same user.

5. Limitations

• Performance: enumerating all system handles is expensive (the system may have 100,000+ handles). The entire table must be scanned to find the target file.
• Race condition: Chrome could close and reopen the file between enumeration and duplication, though this is unlikely for long-lived database files.
• Not needed on macOS/Linux: advisory locking on these platforms does not prevent reading, so the standard copyFile path is always sufficient.

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