Description

Privilege escalation due to invalid pointer in the Graphics component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 154 and Firefox ESR 153.1.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "8.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-18T13:17:31.410Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-18T13:17:31.410Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A privilege escalation vulnerability exists within the Graphics component of Firefox, stemming from the handling of an invalid pointer. This security defect allows an unauthenticated attacker capable of executing arbitrary code or manipulating application state to escalate privileges within the context of the affected software. The vulnerability impacts Firefox versions prior to 154 and Firefox ESR versions prior to 153.1.\nSuccessful exploitation of this flaw could enable malicious actors to bypass security boundaries, leading to elevated privileges on the host system depending on the execution context of the browser process. While specific exploitation requirements such as user interaction or pre-existing code execution vectors are typical for browser-based memory corruption issues, the primary risk involves unauthorized system access and potential compromise of host integrity. Remediation requires updating the affected browser instances to the specified fixed versions where the invalid pointer handling logic has been corrected.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides in the Graphics component of the Firefox browser engine, specifically within memory management routines handling object references and pointer dereferences. The root cause is an invalid pointer condition, where the application attempts to access, manipulate, or dereference a memory address that is either null, uninitialized, dangling, or improperly validated during rendering or graphics pipeline operations.\nIn typical attack flows involving invalid pointer vulnerabilities within browser graphics subsystems, an adversary supplies malformed content—such as specially crafted web pages leveraging HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, or complex cascading style sheets—that triggers improper memory state transitions. When the Graphics component processes the malicious input, it fails to validate the integrity and validity of internal pointer structures prior to execution.\nThis invalid pointer dereference leads to memory corruption primitives, such as arbitrary read/write capabilities or type confusion scenarios. An attacker can leverage these memory primitives to hijack the control flow of the application. By corrupting critical function pointers or virtual method tables (vtables) within the browser's memory space, the adversary can execute arbitrary shellcode or payloads.\nGiven that the vulnerability manifests within the Graphics subsystem, exploitation typically occurs locally via network exposure through malicious web content rendered by the user. Depending on the browser's internal sandboxing architecture, successful execution of the payload within the rendering process may require secondary sandbox escape techniques to achieve full system-level privilege escalation. However, escaping the sandbox or compromising the browser process integrity directly fulfills the privilege escalation criteria within the application boundary. The vulnerability is fully resolved in Firefox 154 and Firefox ESR 153.1 by implementing rigorous pointer validation and bounds checking within the affected Graphics component routines."
}