Mozilla Thunderbird external-body MIME type buffer overflow

Overview

Mozilla Thunderbird contains a heap-based buffer overflow which may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.

Description

Mozilla Thunderbird is an open source, cross-platform email and news client. Thunderbird uses Multipurpose Internet Message Extensions (MIME) which extends support in Thunderbird for multi-part message bodies, non-text attachments, and non-ASCII character sets. A vulnerability exists in the way Mozilla Thunderbird parses external-body MIME type in an electronic mail which may result in a heap-based buffer overflow. According to Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2008-12:

The vulnerability is caused by allocating a buffer that can be three bytes too small in certain cases when viewing an email message with an external MIME body.

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Impact

A remote, unauthenticated attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code on a system running a vulnerable version of Mozilla Thunderbird.

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Solution

Apply Update

Mozilla has has addressed this vulnerability in version 2.0.0.12. For further information regarding this vulnerability, Mozilla has published MFSA-2008-12.

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Apply Workaround

As stated directly from MFSA-2008-12:

\tUsers can prevent the vulnerable code from being triggered by setting the “mailnews.display.disallow_mime_handlers” property to any value greater than or equal to 3.

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Vendor Information

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Updated: March 06, 2008

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

Vendor Information

The vendor has not provided us with any further information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

Mozilla has has addressed this vulnerability in version 2.0.0.12. For further information regarding this vulnerability, Mozilla has published MFSA-2008-12.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us [email](<mailto:[email protected]?Subject=VU%23661651 Feedback>).

CVSS Metrics

Group	Score	Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

• <http://securitytracker.com/id?1019504&gt;
• <http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2008/mfsa2008-12.html&gt;
• <http://secunia.com/advisories/29133/&gt;

Acknowledgements

This vulnerability was reported to VeriSign iDefense by regenrecht.

This document was written by Joseph W. Pruszynski.

Other Information

CVE IDs:	CVE-2008-0304
Severity Metric:	31.00 Date Public: