CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2013-0758

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Published: Jan 13, 2013 | Modified: Apr 11, 2025
CVSS 3.x
N/A
Source:
NVD
CVSS 2.x
9.3 HIGH
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
RedHat/V2
6.8 CRITICAL
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

Mozilla Firefox before 18.0, Firefox ESR 10.x before 10.0.12 and 17.x before 17.0.2, Thunderbird before 17.0.2, Thunderbird ESR 10.x before 10.0.12 and 17.x before 17.0.2, and SeaMonkey before 2.15 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary JavaScript code with chrome privileges by leveraging improper interaction between plugin objects and SVG elements.

Weakness

The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Firefox Mozilla * 18.0 (excluding)
Firefox Mozilla 10.0 (including) 10.0.12 (excluding)
Firefox Mozilla 17.0 (including) 17.0.2 (excluding)
Seamonkey Mozilla * 2.15 (excluding)
Thunderbird Mozilla * 17.0.2 (excluding)
Thunderbird_esr Mozilla 10.0 (including) 10.0.12 (excluding)
Thunderbird_esr Mozilla 17.0 (including) 17.0.2 (excluding)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat thunderbird-0:10.0.12-3.el5_9 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat firefox-0:10.0.12-1.el5_9 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat xulrunner-0:10.0.12-1.el5_9 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat firefox-0:10.0.12-1.el6_3 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat xulrunner-0:10.0.12-1.el6_3 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat thunderbird-0:10.0.12-3.el6_3 *
Firefox Ubuntu devel *
Firefox Ubuntu hardy *
Firefox Ubuntu lucid *
Firefox Ubuntu oneiric *
Firefox Ubuntu precise *
Firefox Ubuntu quantal *
Firefox Ubuntu raring *
Firefox Ubuntu saucy *
Firefox Ubuntu upstream *
Seamonkey Ubuntu hardy *
Seamonkey Ubuntu lucid *
Seamonkey Ubuntu oneiric *
Seamonkey Ubuntu upstream *
Thunderbird Ubuntu devel *
Thunderbird Ubuntu hardy *
Thunderbird Ubuntu lucid *
Thunderbird Ubuntu oneiric *
Thunderbird Ubuntu precise *
Thunderbird Ubuntu quantal *
Thunderbird Ubuntu raring *
Thunderbird Ubuntu saucy *
Thunderbird Ubuntu upstream *

Potential Mitigations

  • Run your code in a “jail” or similar sandbox environment that enforces strict boundaries between the process and the operating system. This may effectively restrict which code can be executed by your product.
  • Examples include the Unix chroot jail and AppArmor. In general, managed code may provide some protection.
  • This may not be a feasible solution, and it only limits the impact to the operating system; the rest of your application may still be subject to compromise.
  • Be careful to avoid CWE-243 and other weaknesses related to jails.
  • Assume all input is malicious. Use an “accept known good” input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
  • When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, “boat” may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as “red” or “blue.”
  • Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code’s environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
  • To reduce the likelihood of code injection, use stringent allowlists that limit which constructs are allowed. If you are dynamically constructing code that invokes a function, then verifying that the input is alphanumeric might be insufficient. An attacker might still be able to reference a dangerous function that you did not intend to allow, such as system(), exec(), or exit().
  • For Python programs, it is frequently encouraged to use the ast.literal_eval() function instead of eval, since it is intentionally designed to avoid executing code. However, an adversary could still cause excessive memory or stack consumption via deeply nested structures [REF-1372], so the python documentation discourages use of ast.literal_eval() on untrusted data [REF-1373].

References