Actively exploited vulnerability
Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird: denial of service flaw under attack
CVE-2013-1690 · Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird Denial-of-Service Vulnerability
What is affected
Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird is found on ordinary personal computers and phones, so this is not only a problem for companies. If you use it and have not updated since the fix was released, you are exposed.
Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird do not properly handle onreadystatechange events in conjunction with page reloading, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) or possibly execute malicious code via a crafted web site.
What an attacker can do
This is a denial of service flaw. It lets an attacker crash the product or make it unavailable to the people who rely on it.
- How it is reached
- Over the internet or network
- Access the attacker needs
- No account needed
- Does the victim have to do something?
- Yes, the victim must open or click something
What to do
- Update Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird now. Open the update or "About" screen, install whatever is offered and restart the app or device, because the fix is not active until you do.
- Turn on automatic updates so the next fix arrives without you having to look for it.
- If your device is too old to receive this update, stop using the affected app for anything sensitive and plan a replacement.
Apply updates per vendor instructions.
How urgent is it
CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on March 28, 2022, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by April 18, 2022, a deadline that has already passed. That deadline does not bind anyone else, but it shows how seriously the agency rates it.
The EPSS model estimates a 69% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 99.3% of all scored vulnerabilities.
Its CVSS severity score is 8.8 out of 10 (high), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.
Technical description
Mozilla Firefox before 22.0, Firefox ESR 17.x before 17.0.7, Thunderbird before 17.0.7, and Thunderbird ESR 17.x before 17.0.7 do not properly handle onreadystatechange events in conjunction with page reloading, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted web site that triggers an attempt to execute data at an unmapped memory location.