CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-43535

Use After Free

Published: Dec 08, 2021 | Modified: Mar 17, 2022
CVSS 3.x
8.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
6.8 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
8.8 IMPORTANT
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

A use-after-free could have occured when an HTTP2 session object was released on a different thread, leading to memory corruption and a potentially exploitable crash. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 93, Thunderbird < 91.3, and Firefox ESR < 91.3.

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 * 93.0 (excluding)
Firefox_esr Mozilla * 91.3.0 (excluding)
Thunderbird Mozilla * 91.3.0 (excluding)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat firefox-0:91.3.0-1.el7_9 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat thunderbird-0:91.3.0-2.el7_9 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 RedHat firefox-0:91.3.0-1.el8_4 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 RedHat thunderbird-0:91.3.0-2.el8_4 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Extended Update Support RedHat thunderbird-0:91.3.0-2.el8_1 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Extended Update Support RedHat firefox-0:91.3.0-1.el8_1 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Extended Update Support RedHat thunderbird-0:91.3.0-2.el8_2 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Extended Update Support RedHat firefox-0:91.3.0-1.el8_2 *
Firefox Ubuntu trusty *
Firefox Ubuntu xenial *
Thunderbird Ubuntu bionic *
Thunderbird Ubuntu focal *
Thunderbird Ubuntu hirsute *
Thunderbird Ubuntu trusty *
Thunderbird Ubuntu xenial *

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