CVE-2012-4205

Mozilla Firefox before 17.0, Thunderbird before 17.0, and SeaMonkey before 2.14 assign the system principal, rather than the sandbox principal, to XMLHttpRequest objects created in sandboxes, which allows remote attackers to conduct cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks or obtain sensitive information by leveraging a sandboxed add-on.

Published: 2012-11-21 Last update: 2026-04-29 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2012-4205 is rated Moderate Risk (52.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.80%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2012-4205

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-01-09 0.88% 0.80% -0.08%
2 2025-05-25 0.63% 0.88% +0.25%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.63% —

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2012-4205

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.8 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 8.6 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2012-4205

OS Trackers for CVE-2012-4205

vendor priority summary link
gentoo high CVE-2012-4205: 1 GLSA(s) (201301-01), 14 atom(s) (dev-libs/nss, mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird, …); latest impact high. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2012-4205
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2012-4205
suse medium CVE-2012-4205 severity moderate: SUSE including 69 source package names (MozillaFirefox-10.0.11-0.3.1, MozillaFirefox-140.2.0-160000.1.2, …), 108 product×package rows across 31 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12, … (31 product lines)): Fixed 108. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2012-4205/
ubuntu medium CVE-2012-4205 medium priority: Ubuntu including 5 source packages (firefox, seamonkey, thunderbird, xulrunner-1.9.2, xulrunner-2.0), 40 status rows across 8 suites (hardy, lucid, oneiric, precise, quantal, raring, saucy, upstream): DNE 16, released 8, ignored 7, needs-triage 5, not-affected 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2012-4205

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2012-4205

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mozilla firefox < 17.0 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:firefox:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mozilla seamonkey < 2.14 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:seamonkey:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mozilla thunderbird < 17.0 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:thunderbird:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 10.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:10.04:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 11.10 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:11.10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 12.04 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:12.04:*:*:*:esm:*:*:*
canonical ubuntu_linux 12.10 cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:12.10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse opensuse 11.4 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:opensuse:11.4:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse opensuse 12.1 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:opensuse:12.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse opensuse 12.2 cpe:2.3:o:opensuse:opensuse:12.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_desktop 10 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_desktop:10:sp4:*:*:-:*:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_desktop 11 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_desktop:11:sp2:*:*:*:*:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_server 10 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_server:10:sp4:*:*:-:*:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_server 11 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_server:11:sp2:*:*:*:-:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_server 11 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_server:11:sp2:*:*:*:vmware:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_software_development_kit 11 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_software_development_kit:11:sp2:*:*:*:*:*:*
suse linux_enterprise_software_development_kit 11 cpe:2.3:o:suse:linux_enterprise_software_development_kit:11:sp3:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2012-4205

URL Tags
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2012-11/msg00021.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2013-01/msg00022.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2012-11/msg00090.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2012-11/msg00092.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-updates/2012-11/msg00093.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://secunia.com/advisories/51369 Broken Link
http://secunia.com/advisories/51370 Broken Link
http://secunia.com/advisories/51381 Broken Link
http://secunia.com/advisories/51434 Broken Link
http://secunia.com/advisories/51439 Broken Link
http://secunia.com/advisories/51440 Broken Link
http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2012/mfsa2012-97.html Vendor Advisory
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/56621 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-1636-1 Third Party Advisory
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-1638-1 Third Party Advisory
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-1638-2 Third Party Advisory
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-1638-3 Third Party Advisory
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=779821 Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/80175 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A16965 Third Party Advisory
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