Skip to main content

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2012-3989

High
9.3/10

Summary

Mozilla Firefox before 16.0, Thunderbird before 16.0, and SeaMonkey before 2.13 do not properly perform a cast of an unspecified variable during use of the instanceof operator on a JavaScript object, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (assertion failure) via a crafted web site.

  • MEDIUM
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • COMPLETE
  • COMPLETE
  • COMPLETE

CWE-119 - Buffer Overflow

Buffer overflow attacks involve data transit and operations exceeding the restricted memory buffer, thereby corrupting or overwriting data in adjacent memory locations. Such overflow allows the attacker to run arbitrary code or manipulate the existing code to cause privilege escalation, data breach, denial of service, system crash and even complete system compromise. Given that languages such as C and C++ lack default safeguards against overwriting or accessing data in their memory, applications utilizing these languages are most susceptible to buffer overflows attacks.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published