Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-5731 is a critical-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 27th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); 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 SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — 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-2026-5731 involves multiple memory safety bugs, classified under CWE-119, affecting Firefox ESR 115.34.0, Firefox ESR 140.9.0, Thunderbird ESR 140.9.0, Firefox 149.0.1, and Thunderbird 149.0.1. These bugs include instances showing evidence of memory corruption, which Mozilla presumes could be exploited with sufficient effort to achieve arbitrary code execution.
The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating it is exploitable remotely over the network with low complexity, requiring no privileges or user interaction. Attackers can leverage these memory safety issues to corrupt memory and potentially execute arbitrary code within the affected browser or email client processes.
Mozilla's security advisories (MFSA 2026-25 through 2026-28) and associated Bugzilla entries detail the fixes applied in Firefox 149.0.2, Firefox ESR 115.34.1, Firefox ESR 140.9.1, Thunderbird 149.0.2, and Thunderbird ESR 140.9.1. Security practitioners should prioritize updating to these patched versions to mitigate the risks.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-19610
Vulnerability Data
Memory safety bugs present in Firefox ESR 115.34.0, Firefox ESR 140.9.0, Thunderbird ESR 140.9.0, Firefox 149.0.1 and Thunderbird 149.0.1. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have…
more
been exploited to run arbitrary code. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 149.0.2, Firefox ESR 115.34.1, Firefox ESR 140.9.1, Thunderbird 149.0.2, and Thunderbird 140.9.1.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V17.3.2
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including fuzzing and bounds checks) finds out-of-bounds write flaws before deployment.
Requiring documented secure-development standards and tools can mandate bounds-checked coding practices that avoid the weakness.
Secure engineering principles require memory-safe design and coding that structurally avoids buffer-boundary violations.
Input validation directly enforces bounds checking that stops out-of-bounds reads/writes from being introduced or reached.
Memory protection restricts exploitation impact of buffer overflows without eliminating the underlying coding flaw.
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.
Secure SDLC practices (bounds checking, safe APIs, reviews) directly prevent this class of flaw.
Vulnerability scanning and code analysis directly surface buffer-boundary flaws.
Receiving and triaging vulnerability disclosures commonly includes buffer-related reports.
Developer training on secure coding reduces introduction of memory-buffer errors.
Patching replaces vulnerable code containing buffer-boundary defects.
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.
Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.
Secure development lifecycle mandates memory-safety practices that directly prevent buffer-boundary violations.
Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.
Secure architecture and engineering principles include memory-safe design patterns that mitigate buffer overflows.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.
Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.