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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2018-5148

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-06-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 52.7.3 / 59.0.2 or later.
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
A use-after-free vulnerability can occur in the compositor during certain graphics operations when a raw pointer is used instead of a reference counted one. This results in a potentially exploitable crash. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 52.7.3 and Firefox < 59.0.2.

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 the Mozilla Firefox compositor occurs when a raw pointer is incorrectly used instead of a reference-counted pointer during certain graphics operations, leading to a potentially exploitable crash.

MitigationUpdate Firefox to version 59.0.2 or later (or Firefox ESR to 52.7.3 or later) to replace the raw pointer with a proper reference-counted pointer in the compositor code.

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:= 7.0= 8.0= 9.0
Enterprise Linux DesktopOperating system
Affected:= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux ServerOperating system
Affected:= 6.0= 7.0
Enterprise Linux Server EusOperating system
Affected:= 7.5
Enterprise Linux WorkstationOperating system
Affected:= 6.0= 7.0
FirefoxWeb browser
Affected:< 59.0.2< 52.7.3
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 14.04= 16.04= 17.10

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
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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. Verify Firefox is installed
    Check for Firefox executable: run 'which firefox' or 'ls /usr/bin/firefox' on Linux systems. On Windows, check 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe'
    Affected if Firefox is not installed on the system
  2. Determine installed Firefox version
    Run 'firefox --version' or 'firefox -v' from command line, or check Help > About Firefox within the application
    Affected if Version is below 59.0.2 (or below 52.7.3 for ESR releases)
  3. Identify if running Firefox ESR
    Check the version string for 'ESR' designation. ESR versions have longer support cycles and different version numbers (e.g., 52.x series)
    Affected if Running Firefox ESR version below 52.7.3
  4. Confirm compositor is in use
    The Firefox compositor is active by default for graphics rendering. No manual configuration needed - the vulnerability triggers during graphics operations that use the compositor
    Affected if Firefox is being used for any graphics-intensive browsing (HTML5 content, WebGL, animations, video)

If Firefox (or Firefox ESR) is installed with a version lower than 59.0.2 (or 52.7.3 for ESR) and is used for graphics operations, the environment is affected by this use-after-free vulnerability in the compositor.

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 52.7.3 / 59.0.2 or later
Fixed in 52.7.359.0.2
Interim mitigation

Update Firefox to version 59.0.2 or later (or Firefox ESR to 52.7.3 or later) to replace the raw pointer with a proper reference-counted pointer in the compositor code.

Recommended fix High confidence

Firefox 59.0.2 or later (regular); Firefox ESR 52.7.3 or later

  1. Check currently installed Firefox version by navigating to 'about:support' in the browser URL bar
  2. For Firefox (regular): upgrade to version 59.0.2 or later by downloading from the official Mozilla Firefox download page (www.mozilla.org/firefox) or using the system's package manager
  3. For Firefox ESR: upgrade to version 52.7.3 or later through your organization's internal update mechanism or Mozilla's ESR download page
  4. On Linux systems (Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS): run 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade firefox' for Debian/Ubuntu, or 'sudo yum update firefox' for RHEL/CentOS to install the patched version
  5. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking 'about:support' and confirming the version number is 59.0.2+ (regular) or 52.7.3+ (ESR)
  6. Restart the browser completely to ensure the compositor code is loaded from the updated installation

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

Fix this in Debian Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,200
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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-2018-5148 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