Nice Mozzila Firefox flaw for you lovers out there

www.theregister.co.uk...

Firefox spoofing flaw goes international
By John Leyden
Published Monday 7th February 2005 21:38 GMT
A security loophole in Mozilla and Firefox browser could be used to spoof the URL displayed in the address bar, SSL certificate and status bar. The vulnerability also affects Opera and Konqueror and stems from a flawed IDN (International Domain Name) implementation within the browsers.

The bug could be exploited by registering domain names with certain international characters - which look like other commonly-used characters - in order to hoodwink users into believing they on a different, trusted site. As such, the bug creates a new wheeze for phishing attacks. For Germans to use national German characters in ".de" domains, for example, is one thing, but the use of national characters has been extended to the international domain space (.com, .net an .org) and extends the scope for confusion.

Thomas Kristensen, CTO at Secunia told El Reg: "This issue is not a traditional vulnerability, but a serious security issue which is caused by an inappropriate implementation of IDN."

"We have all heard about the "problems" with "o" that looks like "0" or "l" and "1", allowing people to register "MlCR0S0FT.com" and abusing that to trick people. Using IDN which support Unicode characters gives the phishers and scamsters thousands of more characters to play around with, some resemble "normal" characters to the point where not even the trained and paranoid eye will spot the difference, " he said.

The bug has been confirmed in Mozilla 1.7.5, Firefox 1.0, Konqueror 3.2.2 and Opera 7.54. Other versions may also be affected, Secunia reports. Internet Explorer users are in the clear from this one, although subject to flaws that have a similar effect. You can check if your browser is affected using Secunia's test.

Secunia advises users not to follow links from untrusted sources and to manually type in the URL they wish to visit in the address bar as workaround prior to the availability of more comprehensive fixes. ®



[edit on 8-2-2005 by Andy Robins]

HAHAHAHA M$ got shown up yet again. To get the patch the link is here
Mozilla Suite
Firefox



And the BoingBoing post that alerted me to it is right here.



[edit on 8-2-2005 by sardion2000]

Idiot. You go on about an easily repaired flaw which actually affects all browsers except for IE (it doesn't contain the FEATURE necessary, unless you install it from the MS website, in which case it too is vulnerable). Nevermind that, it's fixed in less than a week, which we all know happens with IE every time too.. Doesn't it? As a plus, you didn't even spell Mozilla right.

Just today I downloaded seven very critical flaw fixes for IE and MS Windows.

a funny article, and the response it generated

I would like to just point out that Unicode characters suck and have been the bain of security-minded people for ages now and no doubt will stay that way. Also IIRC the exploit will work on IE machines as well if they have certain modifications applied to them. The IE to Non-IE list of bugs is still way off balance but thanks for playing and better luck next time

Originally posted by shbaz
Idiot. You go on about an easily repaired flaw which actually affects all browsers except for IE (it doesn't contain the FEATURE necessary, unless you install it from the MS website, in which case it too is vulnerable). Nevermind that, it's fixed in less than a week, which we all know happens with IE every time too.. Doesn't it? As a plus, you didn't even spell Mozilla right.

Just today I downloaded seven very critical flaw fixes for IE and MS Windows.

way to bitch-slap ie go firefox bring down ie

Do we really need another thread when you started a similar one just the other day?

For all you Firefox Mozilla Lovers out there who like to Dis IE

Thread Closed