CVE-2023-34414

The error page for sites with invalid TLS certificates was missing the activation-delay Firefox uses to protect prompts and permission dialogs from attacks that exploit human response time delays. If a malicious page elicited user clicks in precise locations immediately before navigating to a site with a certificate error and made the renderer extremely busy at the same time, it could create a gap between when the error page was loaded and when the display actually refreshed. With the right timing the elicited clicks could land in that gap and activate the button that overrides the certificate error for that site. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 102.12, Firefox < 114, and Thunderbird < 102.12.

Published: 2023-06-19 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-34414 is rated Low Risk (32.4/100): CVSS Low severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.90%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2023-34414

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 0.05% 0.90% +0.85%
2 2026-06-07 0.05% 0.05% +0.00%
3 2026-04-19 0.05%

Full EPSS history (11 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-34414

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
3.1 3.1 LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L 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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
1.6 1.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-34414

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-34414

vendor priority summary link
alpine CVE-2023-34414: 3 source package rows (firefox, firefox-esr, thunderbird); 126 state rows across 6 repos (3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 8, open 118. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-34414
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-34414 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 3 source packages (firefox, firefox-esr, thunderbird), 11 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 11. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-34414
gentoo high CVE-2023-34414: 2 GLSA(s) (202312-03, 202401-10), 4 atom(s) (mail-client/thunderbird, mail-client/thunderbird-bin, www-client/firefox, www-client/firefox-bin); latest impact high. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2023-34414
redhat high https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-34414
suse high CVE-2023-34414 severity important: SUSE including 45 source package names (MozillaFirefox, MozillaFirefox-102.12.0-112.162.1, …), 203 product×package rows across 67 product lines (Container suse/kiosk/firefox-esr, Image SLES12-SP5-SAP-Azure-LI-BYOS-Production, … (67 product lines)): Fixed 200, Known Not Affected 3. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-34414/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-34414 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (firefox, thunderbird), 16 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 6, released 5, not-affected 3, needs-triage 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-34414

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-34414

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mozilla firefox < 114.0 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:firefox:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mozilla firefox_esr < 102.12 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:firefox_esr:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mozilla thunderbird < 102.12 cpe:2.3:a:mozilla:thunderbird:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-34414

cvelogic Threat Intelligence