Shadowing Practice: Firefox and Tor hit with 9.8 critical level exploit - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Last week, we talked about a major exploit discovered in the Chromium-based Arc browser, and all the smart people in the comments were like, thank god I use Firefox.
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Unfortunately, the turns have tabled, and now another 9.8 critical vulnerability has crashed into a second browser, this time Firefox.
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And this time, it's been actively exploited in the wild.
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Now, before you go in the comments and say, thank god I use Tor, it even affects everybody out there doing totally not illegal stuff on the Tor browser, which itself is Firefox-based.
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This time, though, it wasn't a silly mistake involving a misconfigured Firebase security rule, but rather a used-after-free flaw on their implementation of the CSS animation timeline property.
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They left a pointer dangling, which is far more difficult to detect and audit, and in this case could be used by bad guys to take full control of your browser with remote code execution.
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If you're running one of these Firefox versions, you're probably already dead, but if not, you'll want to update immediately.
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In today's video, you'll learn all about the interesting and terrifying world of use-after-free exploits.
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It is October 15th, 2024, and you're watching the Code Report.
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Before we get started, though, I have some other bad news for internet browser users, specifically those on Chrome using uBlock Origin, or any other ad blocker for that matter.
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We all knew this day was coming, but shots were fired yesterday when this ominous message appeared on the plugin's install page, warning users that uBlock's execution date is drawing near.
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Now, this is all part of a grand conspiracy to get you to watch ads and be happy, and Google is achieving that by updating the manifest for plugins from version 2 to version 3,
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which eliminates the web request API where plugins can see all the incoming network requests
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so they can block all the garbage from known ad servers.
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I made a video on this a while ago if you want all the details, but now let's get back to Firefox.
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Slovakian company ESET has been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerability.
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Where an attacker is able to achieve code execution by exploiting a use after free flaw in the CSS animation timeline.
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I use the animation timeline all the time to create scroll animations on websites that nobody asked for, and never would have expected it to be an attack vector.
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But to understand why this is so bad, we need to understand what use after free actually means.
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Exploits like this have affected all the other browsers, including Chrome and Safari, and useAfterFree was even responsible for the iOS jailbreak of 2019.
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The Firefox browser is free and open source, but you won't find it on GitHub.
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Its code is actually self-hosted and uses Mercurial for version control.
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It's primarily written in C++, although more and more of its code is now being written in Rust, a language that was created by a software engineer at Mozilla.
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Firefox itself contains over 30 million lines of code, because building a browser is extremely complex.
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At a high level, here's how a use-after-free flaw could be introduced.
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In the C code, let's imagine we need to allocate some memory for a value.
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To achieve that, we create a pointer and then use malloc to allocate memory for it.
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From there we can assign a value to it and use it in our program to do something useful, like in the case of Firefox, render an animation.
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At some later point, when we no longer need that memory, we'll want to deallocate it with free.
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But now we have a problem called a dangling pointer.
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The memory is free, but the pointer itself still exists and is now being used in our code with undefined behavior.
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If an attacker can figure out how to get some malicious code into that memory, it can cause the program to crash, or even worse, remote code execution.
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Now, this could be easily fixed by setting the pointer to null or a different object, but in the case of Firefox, the issue is likely a lot more complex and above my pay grade.
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It's still being analyzed, so there's not a ton of detail, but Mozilla stated that they have had reports of the vulnerability being exploited in the wild.
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The good news, though, is that it's completely fixed, and it doesn't appear anything catastrophic has happened.
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In addition, if you're using the anonymous Tor browser, an attacker could take control of your browser, but probably not totally de-anonymize you, assuming you're on Tails OS,
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which recently merged with the Tor browser as one project.
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Now, another browser that was affected by all this is Zen, which is an awesome open source project based on Firefox.
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They quickly update it to the fixed version, but it just goes to show how one little flaw can affect a lot of downstream projects.
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But if your goal is to write robust, bulletproof code, you'll need to start with computer science fundamentals.
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And you can start doing that today for free thanks to this video's sponsor, Brilliant.
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Their quick, rewarding, interactive lessons will help you build a foundation for problem solving that every software engineer needs to have.
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When you make their Python course a habit with just a few minutes of effort each day, you'll quickly develop the skills needed to build world-changing software.
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And you can do it anywhere, even from your phone.
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To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for 30 days, visit brilliant.org slash fireship or scan this QR code for 20% off their premium annual subscription.
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This has been the Code Report, thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “Firefox and Tor hit with 9.8 critical level exploit”. Las palabras que más se repiten: code, browser, Firefox, pointer, animation. Este vídeo tiene 47 frases y 991 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 4:27. El hablante habla rápido, unas 223 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. Solo el 80 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| exploit sustantivo | /ˈɛksplɔɪt/ | hazaña, proeza |
| pointer sustantivo | /ˈpɔɪn.təɹ/ | puntero |
| animation sustantivo | /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/ | vivificación, animación |
| flaw sustantivo | /flɔ/ | falla |
| attacker sustantivo | /əˈtækɚ/ | atacante, asaltante |
| vulnerability sustantivo | /ˌvʌln(ə)ɹəˈbɪlɪti/ | vulnerabilidad |
| timeline sustantivo | /ˈtaɪmˌlaɪn/ | cronología, línea de tiempo |
| allocate verbo | /ˈæl.ə.keɪt/ | asignar, adjudicar |
| dangle verbo | /ˈdæŋ.ɡəl/ | pender |
| interactive adjetivo | /ˌɪn.tɚˈæk.tɪv/ | interactivo |
| anonymize verbo | anonimizar | |
| blocker sustantivo | /ˈblɑkɚ/ | bloqueador, bloqueadora |
| bulletproof adjetivo | /ˈbʊlɪtpɹuf/ | antibalas, a prueba de balas |
| jailbreak sustantivo | /ˈd͡ʒeɪlˌbɹeɪk/ | fuga, huida de cárcel |
| ominous adjetivo | /ˈɑmɪnəs/ | ominoso, siniestro |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Significado |
|---|---|
| figure out verbo | averiguar, captar |
| get back to verbo | responder / contestar (en un rato), volver / tornar a contactar |
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | were fired · has been credited · being written |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | have tabled · has been credited · have affected |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | dangling, which is · Zen, which is |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 13 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, you'll, doesn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, malicious /məˈlɪʃəs/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, vulnerability /ˌvʌln(ə)ɹəˈbɪlɪti/, interactive /ˌɪn.tɚˈæk.tɪv/, deallocate /diːˈæləkeɪt/, catastrophic /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: scroll /skɹoʊl/, sponsor /ˈspɒn.səː/, scan /skæn/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: vulnerability /ˌvʌln(ə)ɹəˈbɪlɪti/, interactive /ˌɪn.tɚˈæk.tɪv/, vector /ˈvɛktɚ/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: browser /ˈbɹaʊ.zəɹ/, analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como exploit, pointer, animation.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.