GC hazard with default compartments and frame chain restoration

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2013-1738  

Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2013-92

GC hazard with default compartments and frame chain restoration

Announced
September 17, 2013
Reporter
Nils, Bobby Holley
Impact
Critical
Products
Firefox, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird
Fixed in
  • Firefox 24
  • SeaMonkey 2.21
  • Thunderbird 24

Description

Security researcher Nils reported a potentially exploitable use-after-free in an early test version of Firefox 25. Mozilla developer Bobby Holley found that the cause was an older garbage collection bug that a more recent change made easier to trigger.

In general this flaw cannot be exploited through email in the Thunderbird product because scripting is disabled, but is potentially a risk in browser or browser-like contexts.

References