Opera 9.61 Drops Two Weeks after v.9.60
As of Tuesday, the 21st of October 2008, version 9.61 of the popular Opera browser has been made available to the general public. It seems that issues regarding the stability and security of the previous software version have been addressed with Opera 9.61. Those of you that are already using a stable version of Opera are well advised to update (for security reasons of course).
According to an Opera software nurse, the problems with Opera 9.60 were not major, but had the potential to escalate to a serious issue. On their own, these problems would have passed unnoticed by the users; but when you get all of them together and add a pinch of server issues, you have the recipe for a problematic situation. Here are some examples of what could go wrong: you have issues with Opera Link; the browser freezes all of a sudden; duplicate bookmarks appear out of thin air.
Three security issues have been addressed with Opera 9.61. Someone with malicious intent can no longer use History Search to dig up your browsing history. This issue affected all desktop versions of the software and was categorized as “extremely severeâ€. Another security issue that was addressed refers to the fact that Fast Forward is susceptible to cross-site scripting attacks. Categorized as “highly severeâ€, this problem also affected all desktop versions of the software. The third security issue refers to the fact that Opera fails to block certain scripts when the user previews news feeds. An attacker can use this vulnerability to peak at the users feeds as well as subscribe that user to any URL feed that the attacker chooses.
It must be noted that the last two security vulnerabilities were discovered by the same person – David Bloom. The first was brought to light by Roberto Suggi Liverani.
According to an Opera software nurse, the problems with Opera 9.60 were not major, but had the potential to escalate to a serious issue. On their own, these problems would have passed unnoticed by the users; but when you get all of them together and add a pinch of server issues, you have the recipe for a problematic situation. Here are some examples of what could go wrong: you have issues with Opera Link; the browser freezes all of a sudden; duplicate bookmarks appear out of thin air.
Three security issues have been addressed with Opera 9.61. Someone with malicious intent can no longer use History Search to dig up your browsing history. This issue affected all desktop versions of the software and was categorized as “extremely severeâ€. Another security issue that was addressed refers to the fact that Fast Forward is susceptible to cross-site scripting attacks. Categorized as “highly severeâ€, this problem also affected all desktop versions of the software. The third security issue refers to the fact that Opera fails to block certain scripts when the user previews news feeds. An attacker can use this vulnerability to peak at the users feeds as well as subscribe that user to any URL feed that the attacker chooses.
It must be noted that the last two security vulnerabilities were discovered by the same person – David Bloom. The first was brought to light by Roberto Suggi Liverani.
