CVE-2008-5502 in Firefox
Summary
by MITRE
The layout engine in Mozilla Firefox 3.x before 3.0.5, Thunderbird 2.x before 2.0.0.19, and SeaMonkey 1.x before 1.1.14 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via vectors that trigger memory corruption, related to the GetXMLEntity and FastAppendChar functions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/03/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2008-5502 represents a critical memory corruption issue affecting multiple Mozilla-based applications including Firefox 3.x before 3.0.5, Thunderbird 2.x before 2.0.0.19, and SeaMonkey 1.x before 1.1.14. This flaw resides within the layout engine component of these applications, specifically manifesting through the GetXMLEntity and FastAppendChar functions. The vulnerability operates by exploiting memory handling mechanisms that fail to properly validate input data during XML processing operations, creating opportunities for malicious actors to inject malformed data that leads to unpredictable memory states.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when the affected applications process specially crafted XML content that triggers memory corruption within the GetXMLEntity function responsible for handling XML entity references and the FastAppendChar function used for character appending operations. These functions operate at the core of the browser's rendering engine and when presented with malformed input data, they fail to perform proper bounds checking or memory allocation validation. The resulting memory corruption can lead to heap corruption, stack corruption, or other memory management failures that ultimately cause the application to crash or become unresponsive. This type of vulnerability falls under the CWE-122 category for heap-based buffer overflow and aligns with ATT&CK techniques related to privilege escalation through memory corruption.
The operational impact of CVE-2008-5502 extends beyond simple application crashes to potentially enable more sophisticated attacks depending on the execution environment. While the primary effect is a denial of service condition that forces users to restart their applications, the memory corruption aspects create potential for more severe consequences including arbitrary code execution in certain scenarios. Attackers can craft malicious web pages or email content that when processed by the vulnerable applications triggers the memory corruption, leading to system instability and potential compromise of user data. The vulnerability affects the fundamental rendering capabilities of these applications, making it particularly dangerous in environments where users regularly process untrusted content.
Organizations and users should immediately implement mitigations through patch management to upgrade to the affected versions that contain the security fixes. The vendor-released patches address the memory handling issues in both GetXMLEntity and FastAppendChar functions by implementing proper input validation, bounds checking, and memory allocation safeguards. Additionally, administrators should consider implementing web content filtering solutions and email security measures to prevent users from accessing potentially malicious content that could trigger this vulnerability. The ATT&CK framework suggests implementing process isolation and memory protection mechanisms as additional defensive measures. Security monitoring should focus on detecting unusual application crashes or memory allocation patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts, while regular security assessments should verify that all affected applications have been properly updated to prevent exploitation of this memory corruption vulnerability.