One more vulnerability in Apple's browser

Nov 16, 2007 08:49 GMT  ·  By

Since Safari for Windows was officially rolled out, the Cupertino company struggled to improve the browser and make it more competitive for the two top players on the market, Firefox and Internet Explorer. But instead of seeing more consumers using the application, Apple discovered some new bugs which might make some of their clients look for other browser. Sure, Safari for Windows is only a beta but since the other rivals provide stable and well-developed technologies, it's pretty difficult to increase the number of clients with a buggy tool. Getting back to the Safari vulnerability, SecurityFocus reported that "Safari for Windows is prone to a buffer overflow that occurs when an attacker entices a victim to view a maliciously crafted webpage."

It seems like the only vulnerable releases of the browser are Safari for Windows 3 Beta, 3.0.1 Beta, 3.0.2 Beta and 3.0.3. The only version of the application which is avoided by the flaw seems to be Apple Safari 3.0.4 Beta for Windows so the solution to remain secure would be updating your program to this latest release.

"A remote attacker may exploit this issue to execute arbitrary machine code in the context of the affected application. Failed exploit attempts will result in denial-of-service conditions," SecurityFocus continued in the security notification published today.

At this time, Safari for Windows is only an outsider in the competition with Firefox and Internet Explorer but it's likely to see more features and improvements which may have an unexpected result on the web-browser market. Opera, another important player in this industry, has the same goal as Safari, aiming to implement many more useful functions to win the battle. However, everybody looks forward to installing the upcoming Firefox Gran Paradiso which is supposed to represent the most powerful browsing solution ever created.

Just like usual, you can download the latest version of Apple Safari for Windows straight from Softpedia.