CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2017-7761 — The Mozilla Maintenance Service "helper.exe" application creates a temporary directory writable by non-privileged users

Medium CVSS 5.5

The Mozilla Maintenance Service "helper.exe" application creates a temporary directory writable by non-privileged users. When this is combined with creation of a junction (a form of symbolic link), protected files in the target directory of the junction can be deleted by the Mozilla Maintenance Service, which has privileged access. Note: This attack requires local system access and only affects Windows. Other operating systems are not affected. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 52.2 and Firefox < 54.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.0)
Published
2018-06-11
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
browser
Weaknesses
CWE-276

Affected products

  • mozilla / firefox

Showing 1 representative product identities from 2 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.