Shadowing Practice: Firefox and Tor hit with 9.8 critical level exploit - Learn English Speaking with Video
Les maken...
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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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This has been the Code Report, thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les
Deze spreekles op niveau B2 is gebaseerd op de video “Firefox and Tor hit with 9.8 critical level exploit”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: code, browser, Firefox, pointer, animation. Deze video bevat 47 zinnen en 991 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 4:27. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 223 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. Slechts 80% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden, dus de woordenschat is pittig.
Belangrijke woorden in deze video
De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| exploit zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɛksplɔɪt/ | heldendaad |
| animation zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/ | animatie |
| flaw zelfstandig naamwoord | /flɔ/ | barst, barstje |
| attacker zelfstandig naamwoord | /əˈtækɚ/ | aanvaller |
| vulnerability zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˌvʌln(ə)ɹəˈbɪlɪti/ | kwetsbaarheid, zwakke plek |
| timeline zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈtaɪmˌlaɪn/ | tijdlijn |
| dangle werkwoord | /ˈdæŋ.ɡəl/ | bengelen, bungelen |
| anonymize werkwoord | anonimiseren | |
| bulletproof bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˈbʊlɪtpɹuf/ | kogelvrij |
| ominous bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˈɑmɪnəs/ | omineus |
| catastrophic bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/ | catastrofisch |
| assign werkwoord | /əˈsaɪn/ | toewijzen |
| malicious bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /məˈlɪʃəs/ | boos, kwaad |
| manifest zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈmæn.ɪ.fɛst/ | manifest, vrachtbrief |
| merge werkwoord | /mɝd͡ʒ/ | samenvoegen, fuseren |
Phrasal verbs die je zult horen
| Woord | Betekenis |
|---|---|
| figure out werkwoord | uitvogelen, er achter komen |
Grammatica in deze video
De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:
| Structuur | In de video |
|---|---|
| Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet | were fired · has been credited · being written |
| Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt | have tabled · has been credited · have affected |
| Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding | dangling, which is · Zen, which is |
Uitspraak om op te letten
De spreker gebruikt 13 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals you're, you'll, doesn't. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.
- De klanken “sh” en “zh”: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, malicious /məˈlɪʃəs/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/
- Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, vulnerability /ˌvʌln(ə)ɹəˈbɪlɪti/, interactive /ˌɪn.tɚˈæk.tɪv/, deallocate /diːˈæləkeɪt/, catastrophic /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/
Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:
- Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: interactive /ˌɪn.tɚˈæk.tɪv/, merge /mɝd͡ʒ/, analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/, garbage /ˈɡɑɹ.bɪd͡ʒ/
- /æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, attacker /əˈtækɚ/, allocate /ˈæl.ə.keɪt/, dangle /ˈdæŋ.ɡəl/, interactive /ˌɪn.tɚˈæk.tɪv/
- /g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: dangle /ˈdæŋ.ɡəl/, garbage /ˈɡɑɹ.bɪd͡ʒ/
Zo oefen je met deze video
- Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
- Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
- Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als exploit, animation, flaw.
Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?
Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.