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Ubuntu LinuxOperating system · Canonical

CVE-2015-4488

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v2.0 Published 2015-08-16
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 39.0.3 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
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
Use-after-free vulnerability in the StyleAnimationValue class in Mozilla Firefox before 40.0, Firefox ESR 38.x before 38.2, and Firefox OS before 2.2 allows remote attackers to have an unspecified impact by leveraging a StyleAnimationValue::operator self assignment.

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

Use-after-free vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox's StyleAnimationValue class where remote attackers can exploit the self-assignment operator (operator=) to cause memory corruption. This allows arbitrary code execution or denial of service by manipulating memory after an object has been freed.

MitigationUpgrade Mozilla Firefox to version 40.0 or later, Firefox ESR to 38.2 or later, or Firefox OS to 2.2 or later to patch the vulnerability.

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= 15.04
FirefoxWeb browser
Affected:<= 39.0.3= 38.0= 38.0.1= 38.0.5= 38.1.0
Firefox OsOperating system
Affected:= 2.1.0
SolarisOperating system
Affected:= 11.3
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
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

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

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. Identify Firefox installation and version
    Run 'firefox --version' or check 'about:firefox' in the browser address bar to determine the exact version number
    Affected if The version is 39.0.3 or earlier, or matches 38.0, 38.0.1, 38.0.5, or 38.1.0 exactly
  2. Check Firefox package version on Ubuntu
    Run 'dpkg -l | grep firefox' or 'apt list --installed | grep firefox' to list the installed Firefox package version
    Affected if The package version corresponds to Firefox 39.0.3 or earlier, or versions 38.0.x (including 38.0, 38.0.1, 38.0.5, 38.1.0)
  3. Verify Firefox ESR version if applicable
    Run 'firefox --version' and check if it is an ESR (Extended Support Release) build, typically indicated in 'about:support'
    Affected if The ESR version is 38.1.0 or earlier (the fixed ESR version is 38.2)
  4. Confirm StyleAnimationValue component presence
    This is a built-in component of Firefox's styling engine. No configuration check needed - the vulnerability exists in the core code when processing CSS animations
    Affected if Firefox is running with any affected version listed above - the use-after-free in StyleAnimationValue class is present in the binary

A user is affected if their installed Firefox version is 39.0.3 or earlier, or matches any of the specific versions 38.0, 38.0.1, 38.0.5, or 38.1.0, including ESR variants at 38.1.0 or earlier.

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 39.0.3
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Mozilla Firefox to version 40.0 or later, Firefox ESR to 38.2 or later, or Firefox OS to 2.2 or later to patch the vulnerability.

Fix this in Ubuntu Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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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-2015-4488 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