Several flaws were discovered in the browser engine. If a user had Javascript enabled, these problems could allow an attacker to crash Thunderbird and possibly execute arbitrary code with user privileges. (CVE-2008-5500)
Boris Zbarsky discovered that the same-origin check in Thunderbird could be bypassed by utilizing XBL-bindings. If a user had Javascript enabled, an attacker could exploit this to read data from other domains. (CVE-2008-5503)
6 January 2009
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Several flaws were discovered in the browser engine. If a user had Javascript enabled, these problems could allow an attacker to crash Thunderbird and possibly execute arbitrary code with user privileges. (CVE-2008-5500)
Boris Zbarsky discovered that the same-origin check in Thunderbird could be bypassed by utilizing XBL-bindings. If a user had Javascript enabled, an attacker could exploit this to read data from other domains. (CVE-2008-5503)
Marius Schilder discovered that Thunderbird did not properly handle redirects to an outside domain when an XMLHttpRequest was made to a same-origin resource. When Javascript is enabled, it’s possible that sensitive information could be revealed in the XMLHttpRequest response. (CVE-2008-5506)
Chris Evans discovered that Thunderbird did not properly protect a user’s data when accessing a same-domain Javascript URL that is redirected to an unparsable Javascript off-site resource. If a user were tricked into opening a malicious website and had Javascript enabled, an attacker may be able to steal a limited amount of private data. (CVE-2008-5507)
Chip Salzenberg, Justin Schuh, Tom Cross, and Peter William discovered Thunderbird did not properly parse URLs when processing certain control characters. (CVE-2008-5508)
Several flaws were discovered in the Javascript engine. If a user were tricked into opening a malicious website and had Javascript enabled, an attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary Javascript code within the context of another website or with chrome privileges. (CVE-2008-5511, CVE-2008-5512)
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
After a standard system upgrade you need to restart Thunderbird to effect the necessary changes.
Vulmon