TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative
 

Mozilla Firefox XUL Linked Clones Double Free Vulnerability

ZDI-09-013: March 5th, 2009

CVE ID

Affected Vendors

Affected Products

TippingPoint™ IPS Customer Protection

TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 6870. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS:

Vulnerability Details

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Mozilla Firefox. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must visit a malicious page.

The specific flaw exists during the browsers garbage collection process. When multiple DOM elements are cloned and linked to one another and the browser is reloaded, a memory corruption occurs resulting in a double free. This can be leveraged to execute arbitrary code under the context of the current user.

Vendor Response

Mozilla Firefox has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:

Disclosure Timeline

    2009-01-19 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
    2009-03-05 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by:
    Anonymous