Security Resilience

CVE-2026-4697

Memory Safety in Mozilla Firefox ≤ 140.9.0

Published
24 March 2026
Modified
15 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0069 52th percentile
Risk Priority 59 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2026-4697 is a high-severity Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (CWE-754) vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Security Account Manager (T1003.002); ranked in the top 48% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

CVE-2026-4697 involves incorrect boundary conditions (CWE-754) in the Audio/Video: Web Codecs component of Mozilla products. This vulnerability affects Firefox, Firefox ESR, and Thunderbird, with fixes released in Firefox 149, Firefox ESR 140.9, Thunderbird 149, and Thunderbird 140.9.

The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Remote attackers with no privileges or user interaction can exploit it over the network with low attack complexity, achieving a high impact on availability through denial of service, such as application crashes, without compromising confidentiality or integrity.

Mozilla's security advisories MFSA 2026-20, MFSA 2026-22, MFSA 2026-23, and MFSA 2026-24, along with Bugzilla entry 2020422, provide further details on the issue and patches. Security practitioners should ensure affected systems update to the specified fixed versions for mitigation.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Incorrect boundary conditions in the Audio/Video: Web Codecs component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 149, Firefox ESR 140.9, Thunderbird 149, and Thunderbird 140.9.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1003.002 Security Account Manager Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored.
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
T1003.008 /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump the contents of <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code> to enable offline password cracking.
T1006 Direct Volume Access Stealth
Adversaries may directly access a volume to bypass file access controls and file system monitoring.
T1007 System Service Discovery Discovery
Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services.
T1012 Query Registry Discovery
Adversaries may interact with the Windows Registry to gather information about the system, configuration, and installed software.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-4685Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-4699Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-4686Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2023-37212Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2023-23606Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2023-6213Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2024-5701Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2024-5695Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2023-5731Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2023-34417Same product: Mozilla Firefox

Affected Assets

mozilla
firefox
≤ 140.9.0 · ≤ 149.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation explicitly exercises unusual conditions to find missing or incorrect checks.

Input validation directly requires checking for unexpected or malformed conditions before they propagate.

Requiring documented secure-development standards and tools can mandate bounds-checked coding practices that avoid the weakness.

Security engineering principles include structured handling of edge cases and exceptions during design.

Memory-protection mechanisms limit the exploitability and blast radius of a successful out-of-bounds write.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

ID.RA-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover out-of-bounds write flaws so they can be remediated.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Patching or replacing vulnerable software directly eliminates known instances of this coding weakness.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure-development practices (static analysis, bounds checking, code review) are the primary means of preventing out-of-bounds writes.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

removes
removes
removes
removes
removes

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-754, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-354.

References