CVE-2011-3660 in Firefox
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple unspecified vulnerabilities in the browser engine in Mozilla Firefox 4.x through 8.0, Thunderbird 5.0 through 8.0, and SeaMonkey before 2.6 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via vectors that trigger a compartment mismatch associated with the nsDOMMessageEvent::GetData function, and unknown other vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/19/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2011-3660 represents a critical security flaw affecting multiple Mozilla products including Firefox versions 4.0 through 8.0, Thunderbird versions 5.0 through 8.0, and SeaMonkey versions prior to 2.6. This issue stems from unspecified vulnerabilities within the browser engine's handling of compartment mismatches, specifically involving the nsDOMMessageEvent::GetData function. The flaw manifests as a compartment mismatch condition that can be exploited through various attack vectors to trigger memory corruption and subsequent application crashes. The technical nature of this vulnerability places it within the category of memory safety issues that are particularly dangerous due to their potential for arbitrary code execution. The compartment mismatch occurs at the JavaScript engine level where different security contexts fail to properly validate data access boundaries, creating opportunities for malicious code to bypass security restrictions.
The operational impact of CVE-2011-3660 is severe and multifaceted, encompassing both denial of service and potential remote code execution capabilities. When exploited, the vulnerability can cause applications to crash unpredictably, leading to service disruption for end users and potentially enabling attackers to gain unauthorized access to systems. The memory corruption aspect of this flaw means that attackers can manipulate memory structures to execute malicious payloads, while the compartment mismatch allows for privilege escalation within the application's security model. The vulnerability's presence in multiple Mozilla products creates a widespread risk surface, affecting web browsing and email clients that millions of users rely upon for daily operations. Security researchers have classified this as a high-severity issue due to its potential for exploitation in the wild and the difficulty in preventing such attacks through standard user behavior modifications.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2011-3660 focus primarily on immediate software updates and patches provided by Mozilla to address the underlying compartment mismatch issues. Organizations should prioritize updating all affected versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey to their latest secure releases, which contain fixes for the memory corruption and compartment handling problems. Network administrators should implement additional security controls including web application firewalls and content filtering systems to detect and block potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability's classification aligns with CWE-122, which deals with heap-based buffer overflow conditions, and follows ATT&CK techniques related to privilege escalation and code injection. Security monitoring should include detection of abnormal memory access patterns and unexpected application crashes that may indicate exploitation attempts. Regular security assessments and penetration testing should verify that the applied patches have effectively resolved the compartment mismatch issues and that no residual vulnerabilities remain in the affected software ecosystems.