Mozilla blocks password thieving add-on

Mozilla has disabled a malicious password stealing add-on known as Mozilla Sniffer, which was uploaded on 6 June and downloaded by 1,800 users.

The add-on contained code that intercepted login data submitted to any web site, and sent this data to a remote location.

Mozilla discovered the bug on 12 July, and added it to its block list prompting the add-on to be uninstalled.

"All current users should receive an uninstall notification within a day or so. The site this add-on sends data to seems to be down at the moment, so it is unknown if data is still being collected," Mozilla said in a blog post.

Mozilla Sniffer was not developed or reviewed by Mozilla. It was in an experimental state, and all users that installed it should have seen a warning indicating it is was not reviewed, Mozilla said.

A security flaw was also discovered in version 3.0.1 of the CoolPreviews add-on.

The vulnerability is triggered using a specially crafted hyperlink. If the user hovers the cursor over this link, the attacking script is given control over the host computer.

So far 177,000 users have a vulnerable version installed. This is less than 25 per cent of the install base and it will continue to decrease as more users are prompted to update to a new version, Mozilla noted.