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Fencer Intel
high 8.8

CVE-2021-38493 json

Mozilla developers reported memory safety bugs present in Firefox 91 and Firefox ESR 78.13.

published 5y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2021-24945

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.2%
EPSS 1.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 69%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Mozilla developers reported memory safety bugs present in Firefox 91 and Firefox ESR 78.13. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 78.14, Thunderbird < 78.14, and Firefox < 92.

Patch / fix

  • Mozilla Firefox ESR 78.14
  • Mozilla Thunderbird 78.14
  • Mozilla Firefox 92
  • firefox-esr Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 78.14.0esr-1
  • thunderbird Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1:78.14.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-38493

  • firefox Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 92.0+build3-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  • firefox Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 92.0+build3-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1:78.14.0+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 1:78.14.0+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-38493

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • firefox RHEL 7 78.14.0-1.el7_9
  • firefox RHEL 8 78.14.0-1.el8_4
  • thunderbird RHEL 7 78.14.0-1.el7_9
  • thunderbird RHEL 8 78.14.0-1.el8_4
  • firefox RHEL 8.2 EUS 78.14.0-1.el8_2
  • thunderbird RHEL 8.1 EUS 78.14.0-1.el8_1
  • thunderbird RHEL 8.2 EUS 78.14.0-1.el8_2
  • firefox RHEL 8.1 EUS 78.14.0-1.el8_1

red hat advisories RHSA-2021:3498RHSA-2021:3497RHSA-2021:3496RHSA-2021:3494RHSA-2021:3495RHSA-2021:3500

  • MozillaThunderbird SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP3, SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP2 91.4.0-8.45.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:4150-1

  • firefox-esr openSUSE Tumbleweed 128.5.1-1.1
  • MozillaFirefox openSUSE Tumbleweed 92.0-1.2
  • MozillaThunderbird openSUSE Leap 15.2 91.4.0-lp152.2.52.1
  • MozillaThunderbird openSUSE Leap 15.3 91.4.0-8.45.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:14572-1openSUSE-SU-2024:10600-1openSUSE-SU-2021:1635-1openSUSE-SU-2021:4150-1

  • thunderbird Rocky Linux 8 78.14.0-1.el8_4
  • firefox Rocky Linux 8 78.14.0-1.el8_4

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2021:3499RLSA-2021:3497

  • firefox Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22, Alpine 3.21 +6 more 92.0.1-r0
  • mozjs78 Alpine 3.16, Alpine 3.15, Alpine 3.14 +1 more 78.14.0-r0
  • librewolf Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +1 more 92.0.1-r0
  • firefox-esr Alpine 3.14, Alpine 3.13 78.14.0-r0
  • firefox-esr Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22, Alpine 3.21 +6 more 91.2.0-r0
  • thunderbird Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22, Alpine 3.21 +5 more 91.3.2-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2021-38493

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • thunderbird Arch Linux 78.14.0-1

arch linux advisories AVG-2344

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-38493 updated cvss 8.8

Mozilla: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 92, Firefox ESR 78.14 and Firefox ESR 91.1

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 firefox, thunderbird
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) firefox 78.14.0-1.el8_4, thunderbird 78.14.0-1.el8_4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3497
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v. 8.1) firefox 78.14.0-1.el8_1, thunderbird 78.14.0-1.el8_1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3501
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v. 8.2) firefox 78.14.0-1.el8_2, thunderbird 78.14.0-1.el8_2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3496
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) firefox 78.14.0-1.el7_9, thunderbird 78.14.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) firefox 78.14.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) firefox 78.14.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) firefox 78.14.0-1.el7_9, thunderbird 78.14.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) firefox 78.14.0-1.el7_9, thunderbird 78.14.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) firefox 78.14.0-1.el7_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3498

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

1.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 69% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • Mozilla Firefox ESR
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
  • Mozilla Firefox

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.