Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-8959

Critical

Published: 19 May 2026

Published
19 May 2026
Modified
20 May 2026
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 9.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0042 33.5th percentile
Risk Priority 70 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-8959 is a critical-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox. Its CVSS base score is 9.6 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 33.5th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Sandbox escape due to incorrect boundary conditions in the Widget: Win32 component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 151, Firefox ESR 140.11, Thunderbird 151, and Thunderbird 140.11.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
Why these techniques?

Sandbox escape via boundary condition flaw (CWE-119/20) in browser widget directly enables client-side exploitation and privilege escalation from sandboxed process.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-0878Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-2776Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-2768Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-0881Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-8953Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-4689Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-4692Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-6750Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-2778Same product: Mozilla Firefox
CVE-2026-6761Same product: Mozilla Firefox

Affected Assets

mozilla
firefox
≤ 140.11.0 · ≤ 151.0.0
mozilla
thunderbird
≤ 140.11 · ≤ 151.0.0

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

Security testing and evaluation at multiple SDLC stages directly detects missing or flawed input validation, with the required remediation process ensuring fixes are applied.

addresses: CWE-20 CWE-693

Security testing and developer training directly verify and enforce proper input validation, reducing exploitability of injection and malformed-data weaknesses.

addresses: CWE-119 CWE-693

Detects exploitation attempts that produce memory corruption, crashes, or anomalous behavior.

addresses: CWE-20 CWE-693

Spam protection mechanisms perform filtering and detection on inbound/outbound messages, directly compensating for missing or weak input validation of unsolicited content.

addresses: CWE-693

Implements a reliable, tamperproof protection mechanism whose completeness can be assured.

addresses: CWE-693

Procedures for training on protection mechanisms reduce the chance of protection mechanism failures being present or exploitable.

addresses: CWE-693

Documented procedures to implement assessment, authorization, and monitoring controls prevent these protection mechanisms from failing due to undefined processes.

addresses: CWE-693

Direct evaluation of whether controls produce desired security outcomes detects protection mechanism failures and enables remediation.

References