Highly critical vulnerability in Netscape 7.x

There’s no question about it – 2004 will be marked in history as the ‘Year of Browser Vulnerabilities’.

We saw BMP and JPEG processing vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. And now there’s a similar vulnerability in Netscape – which was once most widely used browser. It’s still used by millions of people around the world.

The vulnerability is connected with an error in the processing of PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files. It is identified by the famous Denmark company Secunia. The vulnerability can be used by a remote malicious attacker to execute random code on the victim computer. The victim only has to open a specially crafted PNG file using the browser for the computer to be at risk.

Secunia’s advisory says the vulnerability is highly critical – because there is no patch available.

You can read more at threats.kaspersky.com