# CVE-2013-1055: Potential DoS through abuse of rate limit in libunity-webapps for Firefox

> Attackers can crash Firefox by abusing rate limits in the unity-firefox-extension, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 7 Apr 2021
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-42p7-ggcc-r5fp, UBUNTU-CVE-2013-1055

## What is CVE-2013-1055?

CVE-2013-1055 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 7 Apr 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

The unity-firefox-extension package could be tricked into dropping a C callback which was still in use, which Firefox would then free, causing Firefox to crash. This could be achieved by adding an action to the launcher and updating it with new callbacks until the libunity-webapps rate limit was hit. Fixed in 3.0.0+14.04.20140416-0ubuntu1.14.04.1 of unity-firefox-extension and in all versions of libunity-webapps by shipping an empty unity-firefox-extension package, thus disabling the extension entirely and invalidating the attack against the libunity-webapps package.

Weakness: CWE-404 (Improper Resource Shutdown or Release)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2013-1055?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Canonical Unity-Firefox-Extension.

## How do I fix CVE-2013-1055?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2013-1055 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2013-1055 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

- [CVE-2020-11651](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-11651/): SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-7247](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-7247/): OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2019-16928](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-16928/): Exim Out-of-bounds Write (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2018-6789](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6789/): Exim Buffer Overflow (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2015-2590](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-2590/): Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2013-1055 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2013-1055 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 7 Apr 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2013-1055 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Canonical Ubuntu Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-1055/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-1055/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2013-1055
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2013-1055
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2013-1055

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-1055/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.