Firefox Send

2020: Mozilla temporarily closed Firefox Send because of abuses of phishers

The Mozilla company temporarily closed in July, 2020 the service for file sharing of Firefox Send for the period of investigation of messages about abuse of it from operators of the malware Mozilla^[1].

Firefox Send was started in March, 2019 and allows users to store and exchange files safely. Despite the name, it is available not only to users of the Firefox browser, but also everyone.

The files uploaded on the send.firefox.com portal are stored in encrypted form, and users can determine a time frame of their stay on the server and the number of the permitted loadings before their disappearance. Such opportunity involved operators of the malware, and since the end of 2019 they began to use actively Firefox Send in the transactions. As a rule, cybercriminals upload malware payload on the portal, it remains there in encrypted form, and then the link to it is sent to the victims in phishing e-mails.

Within the last several months of Firefox Send it was used for storage of the payload which is used in harmful transactions of all colors - from racketeering software before financial crimes and from bank trojans to spyware for shadowing human rights activists. In addition to the other, using Firefox Send of cybercriminal groupings FIN7, REVil (Sodinokibi), Ursnif (Dreambot) and Zloader are among.

When the service earns again, it is unknown for now all links to the files which are stored in it are unavailable. As the representative of Mozilla reported the ZDNet edition before again starting Firefox Send, the company is going to implement in it the mechanism of messages about violations. Besides, for use of service it will be necessary to become authorized through Firefox account.

2019: Start of service

On March 12, 2019 Mozilla announced start of service for Firefox Send file sharing. Developers carry the high level of security and an opportunity free of charge to share Big Data to its advantages.

Loading the file on Firefox Send, the user selects time of its storage on the Mozilla server and the maximum number of downloadings. Thus, data are not stored eternally, as in a case with the competing file hosting services, it seems Google Drive or Dropbox.

Mozilla started service of exchange of big files in encrypted form

At the same time end-to-end enciphering for protection of the transmitted data is used. As an additional security measure installation of the password on downloading of the file is possible.

Without registration it is possible to send files up to 1 Gbyte in size to storage, they can be downloaded only once, and storage life will make 24  hours.  For authorized users of restriction following: the maximum size of files — 2.5 Gbytes, storage time — up to 7 days, the number of downloads — till 1000.

Files can be loaded on one or several — in the latter case Firefox Send automatically places them in one ZIP archive.

For the fact that to download some file from service users should have the direct reference on it. At the same time it is optional to them to have Firefox account.

By the time of Firefox Send start service is available only as the web version to the browser to the address send.firefox.com. Further an exit of mobile application is expected. The version for Android devices is going to be released in the middle of March, 2019.

Mozilla claims that the new tool can be used for transfer on the Internet of information which users were afraid before to post online somewhere. For example, it is any financial data.

By March 13, 2019 Firefox Send cannot be integrated with Google Drive or with other services in any way. It is important to understand that it is about the file hosting service, but not about the cloud storage of files.^[2]

Notes