Mozilla fixes a critical remote code execution vulnerability in Firefox

Mozilla has released security updates for Firefox 58 that addresses a critical remote code vulnerability that allows a remote attacker to run arbitrary code on vulnerable systems.

Mozilla has released an update for the Firefox 58 browser (aka Firefox Quantum) that addresses a critical flaw that could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on computers running the vulnerable version of the browser.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-5124, affects Firefox versions 56 through 58, meanwhile, it doesn’t impact Firefox for Android and Firefox 52 ESR.

The development teams behind major Linux distributions have also started rolling out updated packages that fix the flaw.

It was discovered by the Mozilla developer Johann Hofmann.

According to a security advisory published by Cisco, the Firefox 58.0.1 version fixed an ‘arbitrary code execution’ flaw that originates due to ‘insufficient sanitization’ of HTML fragments in chrome-privileged documents (browser UI).

“A vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a targeted system.” states the security advisory.

“The vulnerability is due to insufficient sanitization of HTML fragments in chrome-privileged documents by the affected software. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by persuading a user to access a link or file that submits malicious input to the affected software. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. If the user has elevated privileges, the attacker could compromise the system completely.“

Firefox 58 was released on January 23, it addresses more than 30 vulnerabilities in the popular browser, some of them rated as high severity, including a use-after-free, buffer overflow, and integer overflow flaws.

According to Mozilla, its bug bounty program has already paid out nearly $1 million to white hat hackers who reported vulnerabilities.

Don’t waste time, apply the software updates as soon as possible.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Spectre patches, Linus Torvalds)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.