Browsers

The Intel Security Advanced Threat Research Team has discovered a critical signature forgery vulnerability in the Mozilla Network Security Services (NSS) crypto library that could allow malicious parties to set up fraudulent sites masquerading as legitimate businesses and other organizations. The Mozilla NSS library, commonly utilized in the Firefox web browser, can also be found in Thunderbird, Seamonkey, and other Mozilla products. Dubbed “BERserk”, this vulnerability allows for attackers to forge RSA signatures, thereby allowing for the bypass of authentication to websites utilizing SSL/TLS. Given that certificates can be forged for any domain, this issue raises serious concerns around integrity and confidentiality as we traverse what we perceive to be secure websites. ...

Microsoft has confirmed a bug in Internet Explorer 8, CVE-2013-1347, which exposes user machines to remote code execution. In an advisory, Microsoft says the vulnerability “exists in the way that Internet Explorer [accesses] an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated.” That, in turn, opens the door to memory corruption and remote code execution in the current user context. According to this blog post by Eric Roman: “A use-after-free condition occurs when a CGenericElement object is freed, but a reference is kept on the document and used again during rendering, an invalid memory that’s controllable is used, and allows arbitrary code execution under the context of the user.” ...