Mozilla security chief confirms data leakage bug in Firefox
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Help on the way Mozilla's chief of security has confirmed a vulnerability that could cause fully patched versions of Firefox to expose a user's private data.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Mozilla patched its flagship Firefox browser Thursday with fixes for six vulnerabilities, one of which was stamped "critical" by the open-source developer. This was the third time Mozilla has updated Firefox in 2007. The updates bring the current browser to Version 2.0.0.4 and the 2005 edition to 1.5.0.12. MFSA 2007-12, the most serious of the six, patched 30 separate memory corruption bugs in the browser layout and JavaScript engines. Even Mozilla seemed unsure of their impact. "Some of these crashes showed evidence of memory corruption under certain circumstances, and we presume that with enough effort, at least some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code," the advisory read. Mozilla warned Thunderbird and SeaMonkey that their e-mail software, which shares Firefox's layout engine, may be vulnerable to these bugs as well. The developers recommend that users do not enable JavaScript in Thunderbird or the mail portion of SeaMonkey. The updates also fix a pop-up bug that could be used to mask parts of the browser, such as the address bar; a cross-site scripting vulnerability; a problem with how the browsers handle cookies; and a flaw that could let attackers crash Firefox using its autocomplete feature. Firefox 2.0.0.4 can be downloaded from the Mozilla Web site for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux; Firefox 1.5.0.12, meanwhile, is available from a different page. Current users can also update using the Check for Updates command in the help menu. Mozilla also reiterated that Thursday's patches would be Firefox 1.5's last and said that an update to Firefox 2.0.0.4 would be offered to its users "over the coming weeks." Although Firefox ended 2006 on an upbeat security note according to Symantec -- the anti-virus vendor tallied 40 patches in the last six months of the year, 26 percent fewer than the 54 released for rival browser Internet Explorer -- so far this year, Mozilla has addressed more than twice as many vulnerabilities as IE. In the first five months of 2007, 22 bugs in Firefox have been patched, nine of which were pegged as critical. Microsoft has fixed only eight in IE; seven were labeled critical.
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Mozilla bumped up the threat ranking for an unpatched Firefox bug to "high," but promises a quick fix.
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Equal-opportunity hacking Polish security researcher Michal Zalewski, known for his seemingly unending stream of browser vulnerability discoveries, has struck again. This time he's reported four flaws that are sure to get the attention of bug squashers in both Microsoft and Mozilla camps.â¦
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InfoWorld - A flaw in the pop-up blocker of the open-source browser Firefox could allow an attacker to access local files, according to security analysts.
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Four new unpatched vulnerabilities have been published for Internet Explorer and Firefox, with two coming for each browser.
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Although Mozilla Corp.'s security chief initially panned two Firefox bugs as low-level threats, she later changed her mind and said that they could pose a greater risk when used together.
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Security firms have reported three new security flaws in various versions of the Mozilla and Firefox Web browsers and Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client.
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(InfoWorld) - With the release of its latest Firefox 2.0.0.5 browser, open-source software maker Mozilla claims to have fixed a number of potentially serious vulnerabilities in its flagship product. According to the firm's chief security officer, the company is working harder than ever to keep its users protected. Through the launch of Firefox 2.0.0.5 late on July 17, Mozilla moved to patch nine individual flaws resident in previous iterations of the program. Patches built into 2.0.0.5 included those meant to address multiple memory corruption bugs, a cross-site scripting vulnerability, and a flaw that could give attackers access to the browser's cache. Among the other problems the company addressed in the update was even an unusual vulnerability that could cause malicious code to run on a PC if the browser is launched using Microsoft's rival Internet Explorer software -- a flaw that Mozilla could have easily pinned on Microsoft, despite denials from the software maker that it is at all responsible for mending the issue. And while some security experts still maintain that open-source products are ill-fitted for use inside enterprise businesses as they may leave the door open to savvy attackers who can take advantage of the readily-available nature of the products' widely-published source code, Window Snyder, whose official title is "chief security something-or-other" at Mozilla, claims that the firm's very makeup has led Firefox and the vendor's other products to offer stronger protection for end-users than proprietary systems with which they compete. "Transparency has been one of the key factors to our success in improving security; some see doing development with the whole world watching as an obstacle, and at times it can be a challenge, but we see it as a unique strength," Snyder said. The security expert, herself a former employee of Microsoft, said that Mozilla currently enlists more than 10,000 people in regular security testing of its nightly product builds. Compared to a standard Web browser development team operating under one company's roof, the virtual legion of open-source contributors provides a far deeper pool of talent to try to assault its products to find any vulnerabilities, she said. Companies including Microsoft often point to the comparatively large numbers of bugs reported in Mozilla products by security researchers as an indicator that the technologies are less secure than their own. However, the volume of issues being uncovered in Firefox and other open-source products is actually an illustration of the high level of scrutiny such applications receive, which is more than their proprietary counterparts, Snyder maintains. Microsoft sends out a set of patches only once every month, but the virtual Firefox security testing team is helping Mozilla turnaround updates almost as quickly as it receives reports of any flaws, she said. Patching vulnerabilities as quickly as possible is a more effective approach to thwarting attacks as hackers often have longer periods of time to craft assaults on proprietary systems before they are fixed, according to the expert. Mozilla has also added real-time vulnerability updates for its users in the past year, easing the burden on people to stay abreast of any fixes on their own. "This community approach is the reason we're able to ship patches so quickly. It's more important to communicate with people and let them know what is going on versus waiting and sitting on the information," said Snyder. "If people start looking at the amount of time it takes for companies to get updates out as the best measurement of overall security versus the number of problems that may be identified, more people are going to change their minds about whether open source is indeed the most secure model." Questioned as to whether it becomes a challenge to respond to 10,000 independent security contributors helping in the review of its programs, Snyder said that an unofficial hierarchy has created itself among the people who regularly make helpful suggestions to Mozilla. "It's a challenge and an opportunity trying to do development with that many different voices, and often the most adamant people make significant contributions, but people also make points and build a consensus and ideas bubble up through the group that way," she said. "Even if it makes for more work, we think it's always better to listen to the voices of many than it is to limit the process to only a few."
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The bug, when paired with Firefox, allows hackers to hijack PCs and Macs.
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Before the sun set on Microsoft&#39;s Patch Tuesday this month, security firm Secunia discovered a vulnerability in Firefox that malicious hackers could exploit to compromise a user&#39;s system. Here&#39;s the catch: Exploiting the bug depends on interaction between Mozilla&#39;s browser and Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer.
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Mozilla chief security officer says Firefox has the same flaw that the company called a "critical vulnerability" in IE, patch is in the works.
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With the release of its latest Firefox 2.0.0.5 browser, open-source software maker Mozilla claims to have fixed a number of potentially serious vulnerabilities in its flagship product.
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A Firefox 'flaw' revealed at a hacker conference over the weekend was a joke, hacker admits.
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(InfoWorld) - A flaw in Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox browser makes it easy for cybercriminals to steal user information on Web sites where users create their own pages, such as MySpace.com. The flaw lies in Firefox's Password Manager software, which can be tricked into sending password information to an attacker's Web site, said Robert Chapin, president of Chapin Information Services Inc. For this attack to work, attackers need to be able to create HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) forms on the Web site, something that is allowed on blogging and social networking sites. The attack was used in aÂ MySpace phishing attack reported in late October. In that attack, users registered a MySpace account named login_home_index_html and used it to host a fake log-in page that exploited the flaw. This page sent MySpace username and password information to another Web site, and MySpace users who visited the page using Firefox could have easily had their information compromised, said Chapin. Firefox developers rate this bug critical, according to an entry in the project's Bugzilla database. The flaw arises because Firefox's Password Manager does not perform a thorough enough check when it is deciding whether to send password information, and then does not ensure that password information is being sent to the server that requested it, Chapin said. In the MySpace attack, for example, Firefox would check to see if the form was coming from the MySpace.com domain, but did not make sure that the password information was being sent back to a MySpace server. "From a programming point of view, this is almost like a typo," he said. "Ironically I think that's why it hasn't been discovered until now. It was just way too obvious." Chapin has posted an analysis of this type of attack, which he has dubbed a Reverse Cross-Site Request, as well as a demonstration of how it works . Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) is also susceptible to these type of attacks because, like Firefox, it does not ensure that password information is being sent to the same server that requests it, Chapin said. But IE is less likely to be tricked because it does a more thorough job in checking to see where the log-in form is coming from before it automatically submits password and user information, he added. Â
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(InfoWorld) - Mozilla late yesterday patched Firefox to fix nine bugs, including the controversial critical vulnerability that involved both the open source Web browser and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Firefox 2.0.0.5, which can be downloaded in versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 42 localized editions, fixes the "firefoxurl://" vulnerability that can be exploited only on systems where Firefox is installed but IE is the primary browser. For the past week, researchers have quarreled over whether Mozilla or Microsoft was responsible for the flaw and which company should patch its software. In the security advisory, one of eight issued yesterday that outline the nine bugs, Mozilla again refrained from expressly putting the onus on Microsoft. But as before, it came close. "Other Windows applications can be called in this way and also manipulated to execute malicious code," read the advisory. "This fix only prevents Firefox and Thunderbird from accepting bad data. This patch does not fix the vulnerability in Internet Explorer." And more blunt was the single suggested work-around. "Mozilla highly recommends using Firefox to browse the Web to prevent attackers from exploiting this problem in Internet Explorer," it said. One of the researchers who last week pinned blame on Microsoft had not changed his tune as of yesterday. "This [Firefox patch] does not actually fix the flaw in Internet Explorer, but simply patches one of the myriads of attack vectors," said Thor Larholm, a Danish researcher who publicized the exploit. "I can definitely understand the initial reaction from Microsoft. Most of the emphasis in the public vulnerability reports were dealing with Firefox, the '-chrome' command-line argument, and how to properly escape the exploit code. "However, I can still automatically launch a wide range of external applications from Internet Explorer and provide them with arbitrary command-line arguments, [including] AcroRd32.exe (Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader), aim.exe (AOL Instant Messenger), Outlook.exe, msimn.exe (Outlook Express), netmeeting.exe, HelpCtr.exe (Windows Help Center), mirc.exe, Skype.exe, wab.exe (Windows Address Book), and wmplayer.exe (Windows Media Player), just to name a few," Larholm wrote. Microsoft's position last week has been that IE is not buggy and so wouldn't be patched. "Microsoft has thoroughly investigated the claim of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer and found that this is not a vulnerability in a Microsoft product," a spokesman said last Thursday. Other patches put into place by 2.0.0.5 included multiple memory corruption bugs. "With enough effort ... some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code," a cross-site scripting vulnerability and a flaw that could give attackers access to the browser's cache. Mozilla picked up the pace to push Firefox 2.0.0.5 out to users earlier than scheduled. On Monday, Mozilla developers pegged the update as a "fire drill release" because of the critical nature of the firefoxurl:// bug. At the time, July 19 was the target for 2.0.0.5's release. "But we might be able to accelerate the release," notes from a weekly status meeting read. This is the first update to Firefox since support for the older 1.5.x line was discontinued. Earlier this month, users of that version were offered an automatic update to Firefox 2.0.0.4.
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Fixes made for "critical" JavaScript vulnerability in the Firefox browser and the SeaMonkey application suite.