CVE-2016-1978 Use after free in n/a

What is CVE-2016-1978?

CVE-2016-1978 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox, published on 13 Mar 2016. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Use-after-free vulnerability in the ssl3_HandleECDHServerKeyExchange function in Mozilla Network Security Services (NSS) before 3.21, as used in Mozilla Firefox before 44.0, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact by making an SSL (1) DHE or (2) ECDHE handshake at a time of high memory consumption.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-1978?

It affects 2 products.

Products include Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Network Security Services.

How do I fix CVE-2016-1978?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2016-1978 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-1978 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Mozilla Firefox

• CVE-2019-11708 Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird Sandbox Escape Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2010-3765 Mozilla Multiple Products Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2022-26486 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.6
• CVE-2022-26485 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2019-11707 Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird Type Confusion Exploited High 8.8

All Mozilla Firefox vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2016-1978, GHSA-f6w7-986w-qhfq, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-1978.