September 4th, 2007
More Firefox URI handling security hiccups
Mozilla has not quite fixed the security hiccups with URI protocol handling in Firefox.
According to Billy Rios and Nate McFeters, the two security researchers behind the exposure of protocol abuse in popular Web browsers, Firefox is still vulnerable to a remote command injection flaw that could allow hackers to launch executable code on Windows machines.
[ SEE: Mozilla fixes its end of URL protocol handling saga ]
Rios explains:
Nate and I have discovered a way to “…exploit a common handler with a single unexpected URI…” Once again, these URI payloads can be passed by the mailto, nntp, news, and snews URIs, allowing us to pass the payload without any user interaction. So, it seems that although the conditions which allowed for remote command execution in Firefox 2.0.0.5 have been addressed with a security patch, the underlying file type handling issues which are truly the heart of the issue have NOT been addressed.
Rios said Mozilla was contacted “a while ago” about this issue and has promised a more comprehensive patch.
More on the URL Protocol Handling vulnerability saga:
Command injection flaw found in IE: Or is it Firefox?
Microsoft should block that IE-to-Firefox attack vector
Mozilla caught napping on URL protocol handling flaw
Protocol abuse adds to Firefox, Windows security woes
Ryan Naraine is a journalist and security evangelist at Kaspersky Lab. He manages Threatpost.com, a security news portal. Here is Ryan's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/04/07
