Critical Bug Found in Opera Browser

[David Baxter PhD]

Critical Bug Found in Opera Browser
by Dennis Fisher, Threatpost.com
January 21, 2011

There is a critical vulnerability in the Opera browser that could be used by an attacker to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable machines. The bug affects the latest version of Opera running on Windows 7, as well as Windows XP SP3.

The vulnerability surfaced Friday and it has been confirmed by researchers at VUPEN, a French security firm. The remote bug exists in version 11.00, which is the current release of Opera, as well as version 10.63 and earlier releases.

"A vulnerability has been identified in Opera, which could be exploited by remote attackers to take complete control of a vulnerable system. This issue is caused by an integer truncation error within the Opera Internet Browser module "opera.dll" when handling a HTML "select" element containing an overly large number of children, which could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by convincing a user to visit a specially crafted web page," VUPEN said in its advisory. "VUPEN has confirmed this vulnerability with Opera versions 11.00 and 10.63 on Windows 7 and Windows XP SP3."

There is no patch available for the Opera bug at this time.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Opera Updates
by Chris Carboni
2011-01-27

We've had a few reports (thank you all) that Opera has been updated to 11.01 and fixes several security issues.

Full details are available here

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Opera Closes Critical Security Flaw With Version 11.01

Opera Closes Critical Security Flaw With Version 11.01
January 27, 2011

Opera has released a new version of its flagship browser, which, among other things, fixes a remotely exploitable critical vulnerability that was disclosed late last week. Opera 11.01 also includes some other stability upgrades.

The new version of Opera for Windows has fixes for a total of five security vulnerabilities, including the one that was made public last Friday in an advisory by French security firm VUPEN. That bug can be exploited remotely under some circumstances, but Opera officials said that an attack is more likely to result in a crash.

"A vulnerability has been identified in Opera, which could be exploited by remote attackers to take complete control of a vulnerable system. This issue is caused by an integer truncation error within the Opera Internet Browser module "opera.dll" when handling a HTML "select" element containing an overly large number of children, which could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by convincing a user to visit a specially crafted web page," VUPEN said in its advisory.

That bug was rated critical, while two of the other flaws fixed in Opera 11.01 are rated high, one is rated moderate and one is rated low. Opera also released new versions of the browser for Mac and Unix, each of which includes a number of security fixes, as well.