Attention Firefox and Opera users!

[fit4life]

There's a vulnerability in your browsers!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&ncid=528&e=3&u=/ap/20050207/ap_on_hi_te/web_browser_flaw

Browser Feature Could Make Scams Easier

Mon Feb 7, 5:19 PM ET Technology - AP


By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

NEW YORK - An Internet browser feature meant to permit Web addresses in Chinese, Arabic and other languages could encourage online fraudsters by making scam Web sites look legitimate to visitors.

For once, the affected browser is not the industry-leading Internet Explorer from Microsoft Corp. but rather several of its more robust competitors.

That's because the aging IE lacks support for internationalized domain names — at least without a plug-in, which would then make IE vulnerable.

"It's kind of ironic that it affects some of the supposedly safer browsers," said Neel Mehta, a research engineer at the Internet Security Systems Inc.

A fix won't be easy because the vulnerability, publicized at a weekend hacker conference, that enables so-called "phishing" scams involves a feature, not a coding error.

Engineers at the Mozilla Foundation, developer of the No. 2. Firefox browser, said they were reviewing options and should have more to say within a few days.

The maker of the Opera browser said in a statement that although a fix is possible, "it's extremely hard to find a balance between making the fix too comprehensive or too limited. Even though you limit yourself you can create problems for valid domains."

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