Mozilla launched emergency safety updates at present to repair a vital zero-day vulnerability exploited within the wild, impacting its Firefox net browser and Thunderbird e mail shopper.
Tracked as CVE-2023-4863, the safety flaw is brought on by a heap buffer overflow within the WebP code library (libwebp), whose influence spans from crashes to arbitrary code execution.
“Opening a malicious WebP picture might result in a heap buffer overflow within the content material course of. We’re conscious of this situation being exploited in different merchandise within the wild,” Mozilla mentioned in an advisory printed on Tuesday.
Mozilla addressed the exploited zero-day in Firefox 117.0.1, Firefox ESR 115.2.1, Firefox ESR 102.15.1, Thunderbird 102.15.1, and Thunderbird 115.2.2.
Though particular particulars concerning the WebP flaw’s exploitation in assaults stay undisclosed, this vital vulnerability is being abused in real-world eventualities.
Therefore, customers are strongly suggested to put in up to date variations of Firefox and Thunderbird to safeguard their techniques in opposition to potential assaults.
As Mozilla revealed in at present’s safety advisory, the CVE-2023-4863 zero-day additionally impacts different software program utilizing the weak WebP code library model.
Considered one of them is the Google Chrome net browser, which was patched in opposition to this flaw on Monday when Google warned that it is “conscious that an exploit for CVE-2023-4863 exists within the wild.”
The Chrome safety updates are rolling out to customers within the Secure and Prolonged secure channels and are anticipated to achieve all the consumer base over the approaching days or perhaps weeks.
Apple’s Safety Engineering and Structure (SEAR) staff and The Citizen Lab on the College of Toronto’s Munk College had been those who reported the bug on September sixth.
The safety researchers at Citizen Lab even have a historical past of figuring out and disclosing zero-day vulnerabilities often exploited in focused espionage campaigns led by government-affiliated risk actors.
These campaigns usually give attention to people at vital threat of assault, together with journalists, opposition politicians, and dissidents.
On Thursday, Apple additionally patched two zero-days tagged by Citizen Lab as exploited within the wild as a part of an exploit chain dubbed BLASTPASS to deploy NSO Group’s Pegasus mercenary adware onto totally patched iPhones.
At the moment, the BLASTPASS patches had been additionally backported to older iPhone fashions, together with iPhone 6s fashions, the iPhone 7, and the primary technology of iPhone SE.