Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2013-08

AutoWrapperChanger fails to keep objects alive during garbage collection

Announced
January 8, 2013
Reporter
Olli Pettay
Impact
Critical
Products
Firefox, Firefox ESR, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird, Thunderbird ESR
Fixed in
  • Firefox 18
  • Firefox ESR 17.0.2
  • SeaMonkey 2.15
  • Thunderbird 17.0.2
  • Thunderbird ESR 17.0.2

Description

Mozilla developer Olli Pettay discovered that the AutoWrapperChanger class fails to keep some javascript objects alive during garbage collection. This can lead to an exploitable crash allowing for arbitrary code execution.

In general these flaws cannot be exploited through email in the Thunderbird and SeaMonkey products because scripting is disabled, but are potentially a risk in browser or browser-like contexts in those products.

References