Safari Update Plugs Holes, Adds Anti-Phishing Feature
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by
Peter James
Apple has released an update to its Safari browser, patching security holes, and adding a new feature: warnings when visiting certain web sites that are suspected of being phishing sites or of hosting malware. The update includes four fixes for Mac OS X, with such problems as “Sensitive information may be disclosed to a local console user,” “Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution,” and “Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to the disclosure of sensitive information” patched in WebKit and Safari’s handling of JavaScript.
In addition, this version of Safari includes anti-phishing and anti-malware protection – called by Apple “fraudulent site” protection. Safari displays an alert when it thinks it detects a phishing site.
After the alert displays, a user can close the page or ignore the warning. If you choose the latter, Safari displays an alert saying, “Are you sure you wish to go to this site? Merely visiting a site is sufficient for malware to install itself and harm your computer.”
A second alert displays for suspected malware sites:
As this alert shows, Apple is working hand-in-hand with Google to determine which sites are dangerous. In fact, on the phishing alert, when clicking report an error, users are taken to a Google page.
This anti-phishing feature is another line of defense that protects you from phishing attempts. Together with Intego Personal Antispam, which protects you from phishing attempts by sorting phishing e-mails into your spam folder, Mac users are now safer than ever from this dangerous Internet threat.
We at Intego are happy that Apple is finally paying more attention to the security issues that can harm Macs, and that Apple is taking seriously the many dangers to Macs when they use the Internet. We are always happy to have additional layers of defense to help protect our customers.
More information about this security update is available here. You can download the new version of Safari from Software Update.