dbcve.org
FirefoxWeb browser · Mozilla

CVE-2021-23999

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-06-24
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 78.10 / 88.0 or later.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges

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
If a Blob URL was loaded through some unusual user interaction, it could have been loaded by the System Principal and granted additional privileges that should not be granted to web content. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 78.10, Thunderbird < 78.10, and Firefox < 88.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-269

Privileges are granted, or fail to be dropped, incorrectly, so an action runs with more power than it should. An attacker who reaches that path inherits the excess privilege. The fix is least-privilege throughout, with explicit, checked transitions whenever privilege changes.

General guidance for the improper privilege management class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
FirefoxWeb browser
Affected:< 88.0
Firefox EsrWeb browser
Affected:< 78.10
ThunderbirdApplication
Affected:< 78.10

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
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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 78.10 / 88.0 or later
Fixed in 78.1088.0
Recommended fix High confidence

Firefox 88.0, Firefox ESR 78.10, or Thunderbird 78.10 (depending on which product is in use)

  1. 1. Check the current version of the installed product by navigating to Menu > Help > About Firefox/Thunderbird
  2. 2. Download the appropriate fixed release from the official Mozilla website: https://www.mozilla.org/
  3. 3. Close all instances of Firefox or Thunderbird
  4. 4. Run the installer for the fixed version (Firefox 88.0, Firefox ESR 78.10, or Thunderbird 78.10 depending on your product)
  5. 5. Restart the application after installation completes
  6. 6. Verify the fix by checking Menu > Help > About shows the updated version number
Caveat Minor risk - standard upgrade considerations apply; ensure compatibility with existing extensions/add-ons before deploying in production environments

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-23999 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

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-2021-23999 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

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