Opera rushes to fix browser bugs

By Alun Williams

Posted on 5 Feb 2003 at 17:34

Opera has rushed out a bug-fix release of its browser - Opera 7.0.1.

The Norwegian company has moved to plug the gaps identified by security specialist Grey Magic.

The flaws in the browser relate to a breach of privacy involving browsing history. Also, a flaw provides an attacker with potential access to the local file system to read data files and emails. Opera has now patched these three vulnerabilities along with two less critical ones.

Grey Magic only released their advisories yesterday, so it is a fast turnaround from Opera. Version 7 - a major upgrade - appeared on 28 January.

You can download version 7.0.1 of the browser from the Opera Web site (version 7 was only available for the Windows platform). And you can find details of the new release in the 7.0.1 changelog.

There have been reports that Opera was critical of Grey Magic for releasing its security advisory too early, but a spokesperson for Opera denied this. 'Opera,' she said, 'was happy that Grey Magic reported the problems as quickly as possible.' The company, she highlighted, had been able to address the issues very quickly.