CVE-2025-3909
thunderbird: JavaScript Execution via Spoofed PDF Attachment and file:/// Link
Severity
ImportantRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · May 15, 2025
Updated · June 28, 2026
Description
The Mozilla Foundation's Security Advisory describes the following issue: Thunderbird's handling of the X-Mozilla-External-Attachment-URL header can be exploited to execute JavaScript in the file:/// context. By crafting a nested email attachment (message/rfc822) and setting its content type to application/pdf, Thunderbird may incorrectly render it as HTML when opened, allowing the embedded JavaScript to run without requiring a file download. This behavior relies on Thunderbird auto-saving the attachment to /tmp and linking to it via the file:/// protocol, potentially enabling JavaScript execution as part of the HTML.
Statement
Red Hat Product Security rates the severity of this flaw as determined by the Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CWE-290 · Authentication Bypass by Spoofing