CVE-2016-9079

Exp

A use-after-free vulnerability in SVG Animation has been discovered. An exploit built on this vulnerability has been discovered in the wild targeting Firefox and Tor Browser users on Windows. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 50.0.2, Firefox ESR < 45.5.1, and Thunderbird < 45.5.1.

Published: 2018-06-11 Last update: 2025-11-04 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-9079 is rated Critical Active Threat (93/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 87.92%, 100th percentile). CISA KEV confirms active exploitation (added 2023-06-22) affecting Mozilla / Firefox, Firefox ESR, and Thunderbird. a weakness (CWE-416) Unauthenticated remote administrative access may be possible. EPSS rose +3.11% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. The CISA remediation deadline has passed—treat as an emergency patch priority.

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

CISA KEV Record for CVE-2016-9079

Name: Mozilla Firefox, Firefox ESR, and Thunderbird Use-After-Free Vulnerability · CISA KEV detail

Exploit added: 2023-06-22

Action due: 2023-07-13

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2016-9079

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
42327 exploit_db edb 2017-07-14 Exploit-DB ↗
41151 exploit_db edb 2017-01-24 Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-9079

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 2026-06-15 84.81% 87.92% +3.11%
2 2025-11-27 85.28% 84.81% -0.47%
3 2025-11-05 — 85.28% —

Full EPSS history (26 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-9079

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-9079

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-9079

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2016-9079 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (firefox, firefox-esr), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 6. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-9079
gentoo normal CVE-2016-9079: 2 GLSA(s) (201701-15, 201701-35), 6 atom(s) (mail-client/thunderbird, mail-client/thunderbird-bin, www-client/firefox, www-client/firefox-bin, www-client/seamonkey, www-client/seamonkey-bin); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2016-9079
redhat critical — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-9079
suse medium CVE-2016-9079 severity moderate: SUSE including 121 source package names (MozillaFirefox-102.11.0-150200.152.87.1, MozillaFirefox-115.10.0-150200.152.134.1, …), 227 product×package rows across 53 product lines (SUSE Liberty Linux 7, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1, … (53 product lines)): Fixed 227. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-9079/
ubuntu medium CVE-2016-9079 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (firefox, thunderbird), 10 status rows across 5 suites (precise, trusty, upstream, xenial, yakkety): released 10. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-9079

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-9079

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 5.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_desktop 5.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_desktop:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_desktop 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_desktop:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_desktop 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_desktop:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server 5.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server_aus 7.3 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server_aus:7.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server_aus 7.4 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server_aus:7.4:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server_eus 7.3 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server_eus:7.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server_eus 7.4 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server_eus:7.4:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_server_eus 7.5 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_server_eus:7.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_workstation 5.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_workstation:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_workstation 6.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_workstation:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux_workstation 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_workstation:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mozilla thunderbird < 45.5.1 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:thunderbird:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mozilla firefox < 50.0.2 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:firefox:*:*:*:*:-:*:*:*
mozilla firefox < 45.5.1 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:firefox:*:*:*:*:esr:*:*:*
torproject tor — cpe:2.3:a:torproject:tor:-:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-9079

URL Tags
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2843.html Third Party Advisory
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2850.html Third Party Advisory
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/94591 Broken Link Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1037370 Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1321066 Exploit Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-15 Third Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201701-35 Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3730 Third Party Advisory
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/41151/ Exploit Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/42327/ Exploit Third Party Advisory VDB Entry
https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2016-92/ Vendor Advisory
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2016-9079 US Government Resource
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