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Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2012-60

Escalation of privilege through about:newtab

Announced
August 28, 2012
Reporter
Mariusz Mlynski
Impact
Critical
Products
Firefox
Fixed in
  • Firefox 15

Description

Security researcher Mariusz Mlynski reported that when a page opens a new tab, a subsequent window can then be opened that can be navigated to about:newtab, a chrome privileged page. Once about:newtab is loaded, the special context can potentially be used to escalate privilege, allowing for arbitrary code execution on the local system in a maliciously crafted attack.

References