CVE-2011-2992 in Firefox
Summary
by MITRE
The Ogg reader in the browser engine in Mozilla Firefox 4.x through 5, SeaMonkey 2.x before 2.3, Thunderbird before 6, and possibly other products allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/18/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2011-2992 represents a critical memory corruption flaw within the Ogg media file reader component of several Mozilla-based applications including Firefox versions 4.x through 5, SeaMonkey 2.x versions prior to 2.3, and Thunderbird versions before 6. This issue resides in the browser engine's handling of Ogg audio files, which are commonly used multimedia formats that can be embedded in web pages or delivered through email clients. The vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and memory management within the media decoding pipeline, creating opportunities for attackers to manipulate the application's memory state through specially crafted Ogg files.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when the affected applications process maliciously formatted Ogg files that trigger memory corruption conditions during decoding operations. The flaw manifests as heap-based buffer overflows or use-after-free conditions that can lead to unpredictable application behavior, including crashes, memory corruption, and in some cases, arbitrary code execution. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability by embedding malicious Ogg content in web pages or email attachments, where the vulnerable applications automatically attempt to decode the media files upon user interaction or automatic playback initiation. The memory corruption typically occurs during the parsing of Ogg container structures, particularly when processing malformed or oversized metadata fields within the file format.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to end users who may inadvertently encounter malicious Ogg files through compromised websites or phishing campaigns. The potential for remote code execution means that successful exploitation could allow attackers to gain full control over affected systems, potentially leading to data theft, system compromise, or further network infiltration. The widespread adoption of affected Mozilla applications means that the attack surface is extensive, with users across multiple platforms and organizations at risk. The vulnerability's classification as a denial of service issue also means that attackers can disrupt services through repeated exploitation, causing application instability and user productivity losses.
Security mitigations for CVE-2011-2992 primarily involve immediate patching of affected applications to the latest versions that contain memory safety improvements and input validation fixes. Organizations should implement network-level controls to block Ogg file downloads from untrusted sources and consider browser security extensions that provide additional content filtering capabilities. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-125, which describes out-of-bounds read conditions, and CWE-787, which covers out-of-bounds write conditions, both of which are common manifestations of memory corruption vulnerabilities in multimedia processing libraries. From an attack framework perspective, this vulnerability would be categorized under ATT&CK technique T1203, specifically "Exploitation for Client Execution," as it enables attackers to execute malicious code through web-based attack vectors targeting browser applications. System administrators should also consider implementing sandboxing mechanisms and regular security audits to reduce the potential impact of such vulnerabilities in enterprise environments.