Unpatched Firefox flaw may expose users
Unpatched Firefox flaw may expose users
A new, unpatched flaw that affects all versions of Firefox could let attackers surreptitiously run malicious code on users' PCs, a security researcher has warned.
The problem lies in the way Firefox handles Web links that are overly long and contain dashes, security researcher Tom Ferris said in an interview via instant messaging late Thursday.
He posted an advisory and a proof of concept to the Full Disclosure security mailing list and to his Security Protocols Web site.
The security vulnerability is a buffer overflow flaw that "allows for an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code" on a vulnerable PC, Ferris said. An attacker could host a Web site containing the malicious code to exploit the flaw, he said. Though his proof of concept only crashes Firefox, Ferris claims he has been able to tweak it to run code.
Buffer overflows are a commonly exploited security problem. They occur when a program allows data to be written beyond the allocated end of a buffer in memory. A computer can be made to execute potentially malicious code by feeding in extra data that is designed to flood the buffer.
Ferris reported the bug to the Mozilla Foundation on Sunday, intending to go through the organization's bug-reporting process, he said. However, in an example of the uneasy alliance between security researchers and software makers, he decided to publicly disclose the flaw after a run-in with Mozilla staff, he said.
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