Ubuntu LinuxOperating system · Canonical

CVE-2015-0832

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2015-02-25
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 35.0.1 or later.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Mozilla Firefox before 36.0 does not properly recognize the equivalence of domain names with and without a trailing . (dot) character, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to bypass the HPKP and HSTS protection mechanisms by constructing a URL with this character and leveraging access to an X.509 certificate for a domain with this character.

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 · high confidence

Mozilla Firefox before 36.0 fails to properly treat domain names with and without a trailing dot as equivalent, allowing attackers to bypass HPKP and HSTS security mechanisms via man-in-the-middle attacks using URLs with trailing dots and certificates for dotted domains.

MitigationUpgrade Firefox to version 36.0 or later; organizations should ensure endpoint browsers are updated and consider blocking or monitoring traffic to domains with trailing dots as a defense-in-depth measure.

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
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 12.04= 14.04= 14.10
FirefoxWeb browser
Affected:<= 35.0.1= 0.1= 0.2= 0.3= 0.4= 0.5= 0.6= 0.6.1= 0.7= 0.7.1= 0.8= 0.9
OpensuseOperating system
Affected:= 13.1= 13.2

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
None
Integrity
Partial
Availability
None

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

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. Determine installed Firefox version
    Run 'firefox --version' from command line or go to Help > About Firefox in the browser
    Affected if Version is 35.0.1 or earlier, including legacy versions 0.1 through 0.9
  2. Verify HSTS or HPKP policy is in use
    Inspect browser security settings or check if the organization uses HSTS preload lists or HPKP pins for sensitive domains
    Affected if Browser uses HSTS or HPKP security headers and Firefox version is vulnerable (see step 1)
  3. Check if trailing-dot URL handling is observable
    Attempt to access a domain with a trailing dot (example.com.) versus without (example.com) using the browser
    Affected if The browser treats these as separate security contexts rather than equivalent

If Firefox version is 35.0.1 or earlier, the browser is vulnerable to incorrect domain name canonicalization that can bypass HSTS and HPKP protections.

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
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 35.0.1
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Firefox to version 36.0 or later; organizations should ensure endpoint browsers are updated and consider blocking or monitoring traffic to domains with trailing dots as a defense-in-depth measure.

Fix this in Ubuntu Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Testing1.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
3.0 hours of engineering $750
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-0832 — 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-2015-0832 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