CVE-2007-5340 in SeaMonkey
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple vulnerabilities in the Javascript engine in Mozilla Firefox before 2.0.0.8, Thunderbird before 2.0.0.8, and SeaMonkey before 1.1.5 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via crafted HTML that triggers memory corruption.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/11/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2007-5340 represents a critical memory corruption issue within the JavaScript engine of Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey browser applications. This flaw exists in versions prior to 2.0.0.8 for Firefox, 2.0.0.8 for Thunderbird, and 1.1.5 for SeaMonkey, making them susceptible to remote exploitation by malicious actors. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of crafted HTML content that can trigger memory corruption conditions within the JavaScript interpreter, leading to application instability and potential system compromise.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the JavaScript engine's failure to properly validate and sanitize input data when processing maliciously constructed HTML elements. When a user encounters a webpage containing specifically crafted HTML code, the JavaScript engine attempts to parse and execute the malformed content, resulting in memory corruption that manifests as application crashes. This memory corruption can occur through various mechanisms including buffer overflows, use-after-free conditions, or heap corruption patterns that are commonly associated with JavaScript engine vulnerabilities. The flaw operates at the intersection of web content rendering and script execution, where the boundary between safe and malicious input processing becomes compromised.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents significant risk to organizations and individual users who rely on these email and web browser applications for daily operations. The remote exploitation capability means that attackers can craft malicious web pages or email content that will automatically trigger the vulnerability when opened by an affected application. This creates a high-impact attack vector that can be delivered through various channels including phishing emails, compromised websites, or malicious advertisements. The denial of service nature of the vulnerability can result in complete application crashes, forcing users to restart their applications and potentially lose unsaved work, while also providing potential foothold for more sophisticated attacks.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-121, which describes heap-based buffer overflow conditions, and CWE-122, which covers buffer overflow vulnerabilities in heap memory. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to T1203, which involves exploitation of remote services through malicious web content, and T1499, which encompasses denial of service attacks that can be achieved through application crashes. The attack surface is particularly broad given the widespread adoption of these Mozilla applications across enterprise and personal computing environments, making the potential impact of this vulnerability substantial. Organizations should prioritize immediate patching of affected systems and implement network monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts, while also considering temporary mitigation strategies such as disabling JavaScript execution in email clients or implementing web content filtering solutions to prevent access to known malicious sites.
The remediation approach for this vulnerability requires immediate deployment of security patches released by Mozilla to address the JavaScript engine memory corruption issues. System administrators should conduct comprehensive inventory assessments to identify all affected applications and versions, followed by coordinated patching operations across all organizational systems. Additionally, implementing network security controls such as web application firewalls and content filtering solutions can provide additional defense-in-depth measures to protect against exploitation attempts while patches are being deployed. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to ensure continued protection against similar vulnerabilities in the future.