onbeforeunload and Javascript navigation DOS

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2014-1500  

Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2014-20

onbeforeunload and Javascript navigation DOS

Announced
March 18, 2014
Reporter
Tim Philipp Schäfers, Sebastian Neef
Impact
Low
Products
Firefox, SeaMonkey
Fixed in
  • Firefox 28
  • SeaMonkey 2.25

Description

Security researchers Tim Philipp Schäfers and Sebastian Neef, the team of Internetwache.org, reported a mechanism using JavaScript onbeforeunload events with page navigation to prevent users from closing a malicious page's tab and causing the browser to become unresponsive. This allows for a denial of service (DOS) attack due to resource consumption and blocks the ability of users to exit the application.

References