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Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2016-31

Memory corruption with malicious NPAPI plugin

Announced
March 8, 2016
Reporter
CESG
Impact
High
Products
Firefox, Firefox ESR, Thunderbird
Fixed in
  • Firefox 45
  • Firefox ESR 38.7
  • Thunderbird 38.7

Description

The CESG, the Information Security Arm of GCHQ, reported a dangling pointer dereference within the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) that could lead to the NPAPI subsystem crashing. This issue requires a maliciously crafted NPAPI plugin in concert with scripted web content, resulting in a potentially exploitable crash when triggered.

In general this flaw cannot be exploited through email in the Thunderbird product because scripting is disabled, but is potentially a risk in browser or browser-like contexts.

References