Mac Security Alert - Exploit May Cause Safari To Toss Its Cookies

by , 1:00 PM EST, November 26th, 2003

The information technology security company, Secunia, has released an advisory about a vulnerability in Safari, Apple's Web browser. The exploit can be used remotely to trick the browser into sending a user's private cookie information for a website. Cookies are bits of information stored on a person's computer that are pertinent to that specific person. Their main purpose is to identify visitors so a certain Web site can be customized for them. From the Secunia advisory page:

A vulnerability has been reported in Apple Safari, which can be exploited by malicious people to steal a user's cookies. The vulnerability is caused due to an error when handling URLs. This can be exploited to disclose a user's cookie information for an arbitrary website by including a NULL character ("%00") in the URL. The vulnerability has been reported in versions 1.0 (v85) through 1.1 (v100.1).

The vulnerability carries a threat level of 4 on a scale of 1-5. That level is characterized by the existence of easy to exploit flaws, no solutions being available, no public awareness or workarounds requiring high technical skills, and the exploit being out "in the wild."

Secunia suggests using another browser to avoid being exposed to the security hazard.

Secunia