Major Firefox Security Update Released

Mozilla has updated both Firefox 2 and 3 in an effort to correct several flaws, some of which span across the two versions. Firefox 2.0.0.17 and Firefox 3.0.2 were both released yesterday, addressing some stability issues as well as a rather diverse sampling of security vulnerabilities. One critical bug patched affects both the FF 2 and 3 series and involves a scenario where maliciously crafted JavaScript can pollute the browser's XPCNativeWrappers, resulting in arbitrary code being run with escalated privileges. Another issue given a critical impact label by Mozilla deals with specific crashes causing memory corruption that could be exploited to silently run arbitrary code on a victim's machine. Several other vulnerabilities, many also dealing with JavaScript, were fixed.

It is recommended that Firefox users update to the latest version right away. You can also protect yourself from many future vulnerabilities with the NoScript add-on.