14 DAY TRIAL // The Opera browser is now the subject of a security advisory after the security company Secunia discovered a highly critical flaw in its torrent client. According to the alert, the vulnerability can allow an attacker to compromise an affected system and obtain higher privileges to conduct additional attacks. It seems like the flaw exists only in the versions launched before 9.21 for Windows so the solution is to update your browser to this latest release.
"A vulnerability has been reported in Opera, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of torrent files and can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow when a user right-clicks a malicious torrent entry in the transfer manager. Successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code," Secunia said in the security advisory. "A specially crafted torrent file can cause a buffer overflow in Opera. This allows arbitrary code to be injected and executed. The overflow happens when the user right-clicks on the torrent entry in the transfer manager. Simply clicking on the torrent link will not trigger this flaw," Opera added.
As you might know, the battle for the most powerful browser currently has only two rivals, Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, Opera wants to lure the users and beat Mozilla and Microsoft applications but, if the products remain vulnerable, it is extremely hard to reach your goal. At this time, Opera is often described as the perfect browser because it contains all the tools a user needs without additional extensions, themes or plugins. Anyway, Opera is still a powerful alternative for the classic browser because it provides excellent functionality and amazing tools, all of them bundled in the same window of the browser. If you want to download Opera, you can take it straight from Softpedia using this link.