Mozilla patches bugs in Firefox, Thunderbird

The Mozilla Foundation Tuesday fixed a number of security bugs in its Firefox Web browser, many of which will also be patched in upcoming releases of Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client and Mozilla Internet software suite.

None of the bugs had been publicly divulged before Tuesday, and they are generally not considered to be critical, according to Chris Hofmann, director of engineering with The Mozilla Foundation.

"There are a collection of 10 reports that have come in over the past couple of months from security researchers," he said. "Most of these involve quite a bit of user interaction to participate in the potential exploit."

Still, the Foundation advises that all users upgrade to the new software, which also includes "stability" improvements, according to the Mozilla.org Web site.

The bugs are patched in version 1.0.5 of the Firefox browser. A Thunderbird update, also numbered 1.0.5, is expected Wednesday, Hofmann said. The patches will also be applied in version 1.7.9 of the Mozilla suite, which will be released sometime within the week, he said.

The Firefox update can be found here .

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.