Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2017-7821: Mozilla Firefox: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource

CVE-2017-7821 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Mozilla Firefox. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

A vulnerability where WebExtensions can download and attempt to open a file of some non-executable file types. This can be triggered without specific user interaction for the file download and open actions. This could be used to trigger known vulnerabilities in the programs that handle those document types. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 56.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 9.8: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

  • Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
  • Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
  • Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
  • User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
  • Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
  • Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
  • Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-732: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource

The product specifies permissions for a security-critical resource in a way that allows that resource to be read or modified by unintended actors.

Affected products

  • Mozilla Firefox: up to and including 55.0.3

References