CVE-2016-1979

CVE-2016-1979 is a use-after-free vulnerability in the PK11_ImportDERPrivateKeyInfoAndReturnKey function within Mozilla Network Security Services (NSS) before version 3.21.1, also affecting Mozilla Firefox before version 45.0. This flaw allows remote attackers to trigger a denial of service or potentially achieve other unspecified impacts through specially crafted key data with DER encoding. The vulnerability carries a high severity CVSS score of 8.8, indicating a network-based attack with low complexity, requiring user interaction, and leading to high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or inclusion in the CISA KEV catalog, though it has received some community discussion and media coverage.