Apple Safari: not as secure as you might think!
Posted by: easypccare.co.uk - High Wycombe on 18th December
2013 @ 10.00
Secure' online banking and payment credential pages accessible to hackers.
The IT security reputation of the Apple Mac as being impervious to malware/hacker attacks ratcheted down a few more notches this week after Kaspersky Lab revealed that a
potentially serious loophole has been discovered in the Safari Web browser.
According to Vyacheslav Zakorzhevsky, head of vulnerability research with Kaspersky, an unencrypted file used to restore a previous browsing session in the Web browser client gives attackers direct access to the sites that the Internet user has visited.
This is particularly important when users are visiting a secure Web site - such as online banking logins or making an online payment - an `https' Web page is not normally accessible using the `browser back' button, and for good reason,"
It has been proved that Safari does not encrypt previous sessions and stores them in a standard plist file that is freely accessible. As a result, it's easy to find a user's login credentials, because a complete Web session on a given site is saved in the plist file, # it becomes accessible, despite the use of `https' technology. Whilst the log file is located in a hidden folder, this folder is available for anyone to read!
The loophole is made potentially worse, as a sizeable number of Apple Mac users remain under the impression that the OSX operating system is relatively immune to security problems, despite the fact that a growing number of vulnerabilities have been spotted in the last few years.
Because of this, if a hacker were to use this attack vector to insert malware into the Apple OSX-based host machine, there is a strong chance they will have no security to defend that platform against data exfiltration and complete system compromise.
As as Apple issue a patch we will let you know! We would recommend that after doing any secure banking etc online that you open Safari in a Private Browser session, and you keep your system updated.
Information from Apple on how to start a Private Browsing Session:
Click
here.
All easypccare.co.uk technicians are now Apple Certified, so no matter what you problem is with your MAC our technicians will be able to resolve. All you need to do is call us TODAY!
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