CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2016-5281

Use After Free

Published: Sep 22, 2016 | Modified: Oct 21, 2024
CVSS 3.x
9.8
CRITICAL
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V2
5.1 IMPORTANT
AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V3
9.8 IMPORTANT
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

Use-after-free vulnerability in the DOMSVGLength class in Mozilla Firefox before 49.0, Firefox ESR 45.x before 45.4, and Thunderbird < 45.4 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by leveraging improper interaction between JavaScript code and an SVG document.

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Firefox Mozilla * 48.0.2 (including)
Firefox Mozilla 45.0 (including) 45.0 (including)
Firefox Mozilla 45.0.1 (including) 45.0.1 (including)
Firefox Mozilla 45.0.2 (including) 45.0.2 (including)
Firefox Mozilla 45.1.1 (including) 45.1.1 (including)
Firefox Mozilla 45.2.0 (including) 45.2.0 (including)
Firefox Mozilla 45.3.0 (including) 45.3.0 (including)
Firefox Ubuntu devel *
Firefox Ubuntu precise *
Firefox Ubuntu trusty *
Firefox Ubuntu upstream *
Firefox Ubuntu xenial *
Firefox Ubuntu yakkety *
Thunderbird Ubuntu devel *
Thunderbird Ubuntu precise *
Thunderbird Ubuntu trusty *
Thunderbird Ubuntu upstream *
Thunderbird Ubuntu xenial *
Thunderbird Ubuntu yakkety *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat firefox-0:45.4.0-1.el5_11 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat firefox-0:45.4.0-1.el6_8 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat firefox-0:45.4.0-1.el7_2 *

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References