Mac OS, Linux also adheres to URI errors

Security researchers warn that not only Windows but also other operating systems, such as Mac OS or Linux, are also fatal in handling URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).

Nathan McFeters - one of the experts over the past time, has invested in studying the URI security bug very carefully - saying he will detail the information about the security error of handling URI procedures in Mac OS X and Linux at Toorcon seminar is held in San Diego next week.

In a recent interview, McFeters said that not only Mac OS X and Linux, but most of the Unix-based operating systems have made URI errors. He has yet to find a solution to exploit URI errors to run illegal code on operating systems. But his findings and colleagues may pave the way for further research on the bug.

The focus of the research work of McFeters and colleagues in the past is the technology advantage of processing URI procedures to launch other applications on the PC directly from the web browser.

URI is a commonly used procedure in the 'mailto' tag that is used to call an email delivery application from a web browser. But any software developer can register their software with the operating system so that the application can be called out by the above method without going through any security check Any other.

Hackers have found many ways to operate illegal software on a PC by creating special web links that use the URI procedure to call some of the most commonly used applications.

Late last month, McFeters and colleague Billy Rios released details of the security vulnerability in Google Picasa software that allowed hackers to view any digital photo in the software. This is also a URI security error. In addition, this error exists on some other software such as Adobe Reader, Firefox and Outlook Express.

Microsoft said it plans to fix the deadly security bug for Windows operating systems in the near future.

Hoang Dung