Vulnerability Note VU#441529

Mozilla Firefox JavaScript engine fails to properly handle garbage collection

Original Release date: 18 Apr 2008 | Last revised: 18 Apr 2008

Overview

Mozilla Firefox JavaScript engine fails to properly handle garbage collection. This vulnerability result in memory corruption, which in some cases may be exploitable to execute arbitrary code.

Description

Per Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2008-20:

    Fixes for security problems in the JavaScript engine described in MFSA 2008-15 (CVE-2008-1237) introduced a stability problem, where some users experienced crashes during JavaScript garbage collection. This is being fixed primarily to address stability concerns. We have no demonstration that this particular crash is exploitable but are issuing this advisory because some crashes of this type have been shown to be exploitable in the past.

Impact

A remote, unauthenticated attacker may be able to cause a vulnerable version of the Firefox browser to crash.

Solution

Upgrade
Users are encouraged to update to Firefox 2.0.0.14, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, or SeaMonkey 1.1.10.


Use NoScript
Using the Mozilla Firefox NoScript extension to whitelist web sites that can run scripts and access installed plugins will mitigate this vulnerability. See the NoScript FAQ for more information.

Systems Affected (Learn More)

VendorStatusDate NotifiedDate Updated
MozillaAffected-18 Apr 2008
If you are a vendor and your product is affected, let us know.

CVSS Metrics (Learn More)

Group Score Vector
Base N/A N/A
Temporal N/A N/A
Environmental N/A N/A

References

Credit

This document was written by Ryan Giobbi.

Other Information

  • CVE IDs: CVE-2008-1380
  • Date Public: 16 Apr 2008
  • Date First Published: 18 Apr 2008
  • Date Last Updated: 18 Apr 2008
  • Document Revision: 4

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