Mozilla issues Firefox alert

calidan · Dec 13, 2005, 03:26 AM

The Mozilla Foundation has issued a security advisory, acknowledging concerns about a potential flaw in its Firefox 1.5 browser that could cause a buffer overflow error.

However, the browser company strenuously denied in its Sunday advisory that the problem would cause any lasting damage to the application. It maintains that the glitch is very easy to fix.

The issue came to light last Wednesday, when the first exploit code for the potential vulnerability was published.

The problem occurs with extremely long history.dat files. If the history file gets larger than 10.5MB, then the system can appear to freeze. Mozilla said the system is not actually frozen, but it takes time to clear the history buffer. The company said that to cure the problem, users need to clear the History archive.

Mozilla said in a statement that it has "issued a security advisory on a temporary start-up unresponsiveness caused by Web pages in a browser history with extremely long titles. If a user encounters this problem, the slow start can be fixed by clearing the browser history."

The problem has been given a noncritical rating by Mozilla.

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Source: News.com

Dec 13, 2005, 03:26 AM	#1
calidan Frozen in Carbonite Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 1,409 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Mozilla issues Firefox alert The Mozilla Foundation has issued a security advisory, acknowledging concerns about a potential flaw in its Firefox 1.5 browser that could cause a buffer overflow error. However, the browser company strenuously denied in its Sunday advisory that the problem would cause any lasting damage to the application. It maintains that the glitch is very easy to fix. The issue came to light last Wednesday, when the first exploit code for the potential vulnerability was published. The problem occurs with extremely long history.dat files. If the history file gets larger than 10.5MB, then the system can appear to freeze. Mozilla said the system is not actually frozen, but it takes time to clear the history buffer. The company said that to cure the problem, users need to clear the History archive. Mozilla said in a statement that it has "issued a security advisory on a temporary start-up unresponsiveness caused by Web pages in a browser history with extremely long titles. If a user encounters this problem, the slow start can be fixed by clearing the browser history." The problem has been given a noncritical rating by Mozilla. _______ Source: News.com __________________ Steam Community :: ID :: calidan "Don't try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie.... Study computers instead." - Jackie Chan