Flaw Leaves Firefox Vulnerable
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Attackers can trick browsers into releasing password information.
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The Mozilla Foundation&#39;s Firefox stand-alone browser, which has been riding a wave of defectors from the security-plagued Internet Explorer, has a bug of its own, the open-source group recently announced.
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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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TechWeb - A new proof-of-concept code is circulating for a Firefox vulnerability that was fixed in Mozilla's security update that was released last week.
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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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A zero-day flaw in Firefox and third-party Windows patches turn up the heat for Net users. Plus: Buyout boom in security.
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Unload update stars in weekend patch release Firefox users need to update their browser software following the discovery of multiple vulnerabilities.â¦
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Security researchers can't decide whether it's in IE or Firefox A serious vulnerability that causes Internet Explorer to launch Firefox and execute a malicious payload is sparking debate about exactly who is responsible for the flaw.â¦
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On July 10, engineers at Secunia issued a security advisory, rated "Highly Critical," warning Firefox users that their browser could be tricked into executing arbitrary JavaScript code. While Internet Explorer was originally blamed for the ability to trick Firefox, as it turns out, Mozilla admitted today its own browser is to blame, even after a patch was released.
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(InfoWorld) - The Mozilla Foundation has published a fix for a "critical" JavaScript vulnerability in the Firefox browser and the SeaMonkey application suite. The fix, released Monday, targets Firefox versions 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10, as well as SeaMonkey versions 1.1.1 and 1.0.8. An earlier fix for a JavaScript problem allowed scripts from Web content to execute arbitrary code, the Mozilla Foundation said in a security update. The vulnerability allowed uniform resource identifiers in image tags to be executed even if JavaScript was disabled in the program preferences, Mozilla said. Disabling JavaScript does not protect against the flaw, so the foundation recommended that users upgrade the applications to new versions. Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client was not affected by the vulnerability, it said. The fix comes on the heels ofÂ criticism from independent security researcher Michael Zalewski regarding Firefox vulnerabilities, including spoofing and phising threats aimed at the newly released Firefox version 2.0.0.2. Mozilla CSO Window SnyderÂ saidÂ she is seeing more customer feedback regarding browser security and hopes thatÂ more independent researchers and customer feedback will help the company patch flaws more quickly. "The browser is one of most critical pieces of software on the computer in terms of something attackers are going after," Snyder said. "Attacks are constantly changing and every software developer needs to recognize new threats as they emerge, but that's nothing new, we've always considered security to be a top priority." Matt Hines, a senior writer at InfoWorld, contributed to this report
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An anonymous reader writes &quot;All browsers have been reported vulnerable to different vulnerabilities today. Starting with: Internet Explorer on XP SP1/SP2, which suffers a new system compromise (of course) vulnerability.
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InfoWorld - A security researcher has found a security bug that could be attacked in Internet Explorer. Mozilla said it plans to patch the problem in its next Firefox software update.
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Mozilla issued 10 patches on Friday for its Firefox browser, including three for critical vulnerabilities. The latest version of Firefox is now 2.0.0.12.One of the critical vulnerabilities, MFSA 2008-06, is a problem in the way the browser handles images on certain Web pages.It&#39;s possible to exploit the flaw to steal a person&#39;s Web browsing history, forward that information and then crash the browser. It may also be possible to run arbitrary code on a machine, Mozilla said.A second critical vulnerability can enable a privilege escalation attack or remote code execution.The last critical problem involves a memory corruption flaw that &quot;we presume that with enough effort at least some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code,&quot; Mozilla said.Also notable is a fix for a problem with Mozilla&#39;s &quot;chrome&quot; protocol, which is the term Mozilla uses for its user interface. The problem involves some of Firefox&#39;s add-ons, or applications that users can download which extend browser functionality.The vulnerability would let an attacker determine what applications are installed on a person&#39;s PC, which could give clues to how the machine could be compromised, Mozilla said. However, a victim would have to be lured to a special malicious Web page designed to take advantage of the flaw.&#160;
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(InfoWorld) - Makers of some of the most popular extension software used by the Firefox browser are not doing enough to secure their software, a security researcher said Wednesday. The problem is that many widely used Firefox extensions, including toolbars from Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not use secure connections to update themselves, according to Christopher Soghoian, a security researcher who blogged about the issue on Wednesday. Soghoian is best known as the researcher who attracted the attention of the FBI late last year after publishing a tool that could be used to print fake boarding passes. The Indiana University doctoral student discovered the Firefox issue last month while examining network traffic on his computer. He noticed that many of the most popular Firefox extensions are not hosted on servers that use the SSL Web protocol. SSL Web sites, which begin with "https://," use digital certificates to provide users with some level of assurance that they're not connecting with a fake server. Although the corporation behind Firefox, Mozilla, hosts the majority of Firefox extensions on its own SSL-enabled Web site, it is common for commercial extension-makers like Google to host their software on an unsecured site, Soghoian said in an interview. This leaves users vulnerable to a "man-in-the middle" attack, where Firefox could be tricked into downloading malicious software from a site it mistakenly thought was hosting an extension. It wouldn't be easy for an attacker to pull this off, however. In one scenario, the hacker would set up a malicious wireless access point in a public area where people are using wireless connections. He could then redirect extension update traffic to a malicious computer. "An attacker who sets up a wireless access point can then infect anyone who connects to it," Soghoian said. The Del.icio.us Extension, Facebook Toolbar, Ask.com Toolbar, LinkedIn Browser Toolbar, Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar, and PhishTank SiteChecker are also vulnerable to this issue, Soghoian said. Though Soghoian said Firefox users should avoid extensions that are not from the secure Firefox add-ons site, not all security researchers see this as a major issue. "It's just yet another vulnerable design among billions,"said Gadi Evron, security evangelist for Beyond Security. "I don't see it as that critical. There is no inherent vulnerability, but it does make the over-whole design weaker, and that should probably be addressed" Evron said it was "silly" that sites weren't using SSL for these extensions. Soghoian said he notified Google, Yahoo, and Facebook of the issue in mid-April, but nobody had addressed the issue as of Wednesday. Just hours after Soghoian went public with his findings, Google said it would "soon" have a fix for the problem. It's common for Web developers to ignore security in the rush to push out new and cool features, Soghoian said. "Your average Web 2.0 developer doesn't learn about security," he said. "Google has a spectacular security team ... my suspicion is that one hand wasn't talking to the other."
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Even though it was patched twice in July, Mozilla's Firefox browser is still vulnerable to attacks exploiting protocol-handling bugs, according to security researchers.
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Ten security flaws found in Firefox browser, Thunderbird e-mail client.
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Mozilla Foundation says patch issued in mid-December introduced vulnerability to browser and application suite.