CVE-2012-4205: Mozilla Firefox before 17.0, Thunderbird before 17.0, and SeaMonkey before 2.14 assign the system principal...

Security readout for executives and security teams

This 2012 Mozilla flaw let XMLHttpRequest objects created inside sandboxes run with excessive browser-level privileges. In affected Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey versions, that could let a remote attacker use a sandboxed add-on to cause CSRF actions or read sensitive information. Exposure is most likely in legacy desktops, embedded environments, or old Linux distributions still running affected Mozilla builds or vendor-packaged equivalents. Modern supported installations should be outside the described affected version range. Treat this as a legacy software hygiene issue unless affected versions are still present. If they are, prioritize remediation because browser and mail-client privilege errors can expose sensitive data through user interaction paths. Mitigation focus: Upgrade Firefox and Thunderbird to 17.0 or later where applicable.; Upgrade SeaMonkey to 2.14 or later where applicable.; Apply relevant Ubuntu or SUSE vendor security updates for packaged Mozilla builds..

Prepared

Jun 24, 2026, 12:04 UTC (UTC+00:00)

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.