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Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 13 Jul 2023.
Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2016-9079

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2018-06-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 45.5.1 / 50.0.2 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild High EPSS Public exploit 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
A use-after-free vulnerability in SVG Animation has been discovered. An exploit built on this vulnerability has been discovered in the wild targeting Firefox and Tor Browser users on Windows. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 50.0.2, Firefox ESR < 45.5.1, and Thunderbird < 45.5.1.

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

A use-after-free vulnerability in SVG Animation allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause denial of service by freeing memory prematurely while maintaining references to the freed memory. This memory corruption issue affects the animation handling in Mozilla's layout engine.

MitigationApply vendor patches immediately by updating to Firefox 50.0.2, Firefox ESR 45.5.1, Thunderbird 45.5.1 or later. Given confirmed in-the-wild exploitation targeting Windows users, treat this as urgent.

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
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux DesktopOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux ServerOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux Server AusOperating system
Affected:= 7.3= 7.4
Enterprise Linux Server EusOperating system
Affected:= 7.3= 7.4= 7.5
Enterprise Linux WorkstationOperating system
Affected:= 5.0= 6.0= 7.0
FirefoxWeb browser
Affected:< 50.0.2< 45.5.1

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/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. Identify installed Firefox version
    On Windows/Mac, go to Firefox menu > Help > About Firefox. On Linux, run 'firefox --version' in terminal.
    Affected if Version shown is less than 50.0.2 (for standard Firefox) or less than 45.5.1 (for Firefox ESR)
  2. Check Firefox ESR version if applicable
    Run 'firefox-esr --version' in terminal or check Help > About Firefox ESR.
    Affected if Version is less than 45.5.1
  3. Verify Firefox package on Debian systems
    Run 'dpkg -l | grep -i firefox' to list installed Firefox packages and their versions.
    Affected if Installed Firefox version is less than 50.0.2 or Firefox ESR is less than 45.5.1
  4. Verify Mozilla packages on RHEL systems
    Run 'rpm -qa | grep -i firefox' to list installed Firefox packages and their versions.
    Affected if Installed Firefox version is less than 50.0.2 or Firefox ESR is less than 45.5.1

You are affected if any installed Firefox version (standard or ESR) is below the safe versions 50.0.2 or 45.5.1 respectively.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 45.5.1 / 50.0.2 or later
Fixed in 45.5.150.0.2
Interim mitigation

Apply vendor patches immediately by updating to Firefox 50.0.2, Firefox ESR 45.5.1, Thunderbird 45.5.1 or later. Given confirmed in-the-wild exploitation targeting Windows users, treat this as urgent.

Recommended fix High confidence

Firefox 50.0.2 / Firefox ESR 45.5.1 / Thunderbird 45.5.1

  1. 1. Identify the currently installed Firefox version by navigating to Help > About Firefox
  2. 2. If running Firefox < 50.0.2, upgrade to Firefox 50.0.2 or later
  3. 3. If running Firefox ESR < 45.5.1, upgrade to Firefox ESR 45.5.1 or later
  4. 4. If using Thunderbird < 45.5.1, upgrade to Thunderbird 45.5.1 or later
  5. 5. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, apply updates via: yum update firefox or rhn-update
  6. 6. For Debian systems, apply updates via: apt-get update && apt-get install firefox
  7. 7. Restart the browser after applying the update
  8. 8. Verify the installed version matches or exceeds the fixed release
Caveat Upgrading to the specified security patch versions should have minimal breaking changes; these are maintenance releases containing primarily security fixes

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Debian Linux Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing1.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
4.0 hours of engineering $750
Get it fixed fast

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Scan for this in your stack

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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-2016-9079 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