CVE-2012-5840: canonical ubuntu_linux Use After Free

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2012-5840 is a high (CVSS 9.3) Use After Free vulnerability in canonical ubuntu_linux. EPSS estimates a 6.07% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93.3% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 21-11-2012
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 06-08-2024
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

Use-after-free vulnerability in the nsTextEditorState::PrepareEditor function in Mozilla Firefox before 17.0, Firefox ESR 10.x before 10.0.11, Thunderbird before 17.0, Thunderbird ESR 10.x before 10.0.11, and SeaMonkey before 2.14 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (heap memory corruption) via unspecified vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2012-4214.

• CWE-416Use After FreeThe product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.