XSS and JavaScript privilege escalation

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2008-5511   CVE-2008-5512  

Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2008-68

XSS and JavaScript privilege escalation

Announced
December 16, 2008
Reporter
moz_bug_r_a4
Impact
Critical
Products
Firefox, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird
Fixed in
  • Firefox 2.0.0.19
  • Firefox 3.0.5
  • SeaMonkey 1.1.14
  • Thunderbird 2.0.0.19

Description

Mozilla security researcher moz_bug_r_a4 reported that an XBL binding, when attached to an unloaded document, can be used to violate the same-origin policy and execute arbitrary JavaScript within the context of a different website.

moz_bug_r_a4 also reported two vulnerabilities by which page content can pollute XPCNativeWrappers and run arbitary JavaScript with chrome priviliges.

Thunderbird shares the browser engine with Firefox and could be vulnerable if JavaScript were to be enabled in mail. This is not the default setting and we strongly discourage users from running JavaScript in mail.

Workaround

Disable JavaScript until a version containing these fixes can be installed.

References