During TLS 1.2 exchanges, handshake hashes are generated which point to a message buffer. This saved data is used for later messages but in some cases, the handshake transcript can exceed the space available in the current buffer, causing the allocation of a new buffer. This leaves a pointer pointing to the old, freed buffer, resulting in a use-after-free when handshake hashes are then calculated afterwards. This can result in a potentially exploitable crash. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 56, Firefox ESR < 52.4, and Thunderbird < 52.4.
Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firefox | Mozilla | 56.0 (including) | 56.0 (including) |
| Firefox_esr | Mozilla | 52.4.0 (including) | 52.4.0 (including) |
| Thunderbird | Mozilla | 52.4.0 (including) | 52.4.0 (including) |
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.