Mozilla Firefox 2 URI Launching Vulnerability

Secunia ID	SA31120
CVE-ID	CVE-2008-2933
Release Date	16 Jul 2008
Last Change	17 Jul 2008
Criticality	Less Critical Typically used for cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and privilege escalation vulnerabilities. This rating is also used for vulnerabilities allowing exposure of sensitive data to local users.
Solution Status	Vendor Patch
Software	Mozilla Firefox 2.0.x
Where	From remote "From remote" describes other vulnerabilities where the attack vector doesn't require access to the system or a local network. This category covers services that are acceptable to expose to the Internet (e.g. HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP). It also covers client applications used on the Internet and certain vulnerabilities where it is reasonable to assume that a security conscious user can be tricked into performing certain actions.
Impact	Exposure of sensitive information Vulnerabilities where documents or credentials are leaked or can be revealed either locally or from remote. Security Bypass This covers vulnerabilities or security issues where malicious users or people can bypass certain security mechanisms of the application. The actual impact varies significantly depending on the design and purpose of the affected application.
Description	A vulnerability has been reported in Firefox 2, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions and disclose sensitive information. The problem is that it is possible to open multiple tabs via pipe symbols within the URI and can e.g. be exploited to launch "chrome:" URIs via the command-line. This can also be exploited to read files from a user's system using the "file:" URI but requires that an attacker is able to place a malicious file in a guessable location on a user's system (e.g. in combination with another security issue). Successful exploitation requires that the URI is passed to Firefox from e.g. another browser and that Firefox is not running. The vulnerability is reported in versions prior to 2.0.0.16.
Solution	Update to version 2.0.0.16. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html
Reported by	The vendor credits Billy Rios.
Original Advisory	MFSA 2008-35: http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2008/mfsa2008-35.html