SafariWeb browser · Apple

CVE-2010-1120

HIGH · 10.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2010-03-25
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Unspecified vulnerability in Safari 4 on Apple Mac OS X 10.6 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via unknown vectors, as demonstrated by Charlie Miller during a Pwn2Own competition at CanSecWest 2010.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Memory corruption vulnerability in Safari 4 on Mac OS X 10.6 allowing remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors, demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2010.

MitigationUpdate Safari to latest version and/or upgrade from Mac OS X 10.6 to a supported OS version.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
SafariWeb browser
Affected:= 4.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed Safari version
    Open Safari, click Safari menu > About Safari, or run 'defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info CFBundleShortVersionString' in Terminal
    Affected if The version shown is 4.0 (exactly version 4.0)
  2. Confirm Mac OS X version
    Click Apple menu > About This Mac, or run 'sw_vers -productVersion' in Terminal
    Affected if The system is running Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
  3. Verify Safari 4 is actively used
    Check if Safari 4 is the default browser or was recently launched by examining ~/Library/Safari/History.plist or checking Application Support
    Affected if Safari 4 is the installed and active browser on the system

The environment is affected if Safari version 4.0 is installed on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), as this specific version and OS combination contains the memory corruption vulnerability demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2010.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update Safari to latest version and/or upgrade from Mac OS X 10.6 to a supported OS version.

Fix this in Safari Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,240
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-1120 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-1120 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data