Hasta La Gadget!

Over the past few years, Apple has released new versions of its OS X software, with the latest being OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Prior to that we had Mountain Lion, Lion, and Snow Leopard which was released back in 2009, a good four years ago, and it would seem as though Apple’s support for the four year old operating system could be coming to an end. While Apple has not formally announced anything, it was speculated that this could be the case in a recent Safari update which included updates for OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, but not Snow Leopard. As it stands Safari 5.1.10 is the most-current update for Snow Leopard and was last updated back in September.

Speaking in an interview, Andrew Storms, the director of DevOps at CloudPassage, “Let’s face it, Apple doesn’t go out of their way to ensure users are aware when products are going end of life […] They live by the motto that users will just take all updates all the time as soon as they become available. Or users who are left in the dust will just go to the store and buy a new device.” In any case the browser is still usable, it just probably will not sport the same features or bug fixes that might have been included in later updates, but with OS X Mavericks being a free upgrade, those with older but compatible hardware should upgrade lest they don’t want to be left out of the loop.

Missed Safari Update Could Signal End Of OS X Snow Leopard Support original content from Ubergizmo.

If you’re a Safari user, you might want to consider changing your browser as it would appear that Safari actually keeps your IDs and passwords as a text file, meaning that anyone with the know-how will be able to access them relatively easily. This is according to the folks at Kaspersky Labs who discovered that this problem could stem from Safari’s retention of browser history as applied in the “Reopen all Windows From Last Session” feature, which basically allows users to resume their sessions from previously closed websites. While this feature has been designed for convenience, perhaps its implementation could have been better as the document stores the IDs and passwords as plain text albeit as a hidden file.

However like we said, anyone with the know-how will be able to discover it relatively quickly and easily. As it stands, Kaspersky claims that there isn’t any malware at the moment that is targeting the exploit, so for now Safari users are safe, although in the meantime you might want to do something about and change browsers until Apple can address the issue. Kaspersky states that this only affects older versions of Safari, such as Safari 6.0.5 running on Mac OS X 10.8.5. They also claim to have contacted Apple and let them know about the exploit, but we have not heard any official statement from Apple regarding the matter just yet, but we will keep our eyes and ears peeled and update you guys accordingly.

Kaspersky Labs Discover Bug In Safari That Stores IDs And Passwords In A Text File original content from Ubergizmo.

Last year, Google ponied up $22.5 million to the FTC as a penalty for bypassing cookie settings in the Safari browser to track users. While Mountain View no doubt wishes this episode were far behind it already, the company will pay a pretty sum once again as the result of a settlement today: $17 million in a suit brought by 37 states and the District of Columbia over that very same practice of tracking users in Safari.

From 2011 to 2012, Google used a loophole in Apple’s browser that allowed for placing tracking cookies on users’ machines without them knowing. The search giant’s suffered more than a slap on the wrist, but it’s still not admitting wrongdoing; in a statement, a spokeswoman said that the company “has taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers.”

Filed under: Internet, Apple, Google

Comments

Via: The Wall Street Journal

Source: New York State Attorney General

When Apple released OS X Mavericks to the public, not only did they introduce a new look and a host of new features to consumers, but they have also introduced added security to Mac computers as well with one of them through the use of the App Sandbox feature. Now it seems that after years of taking abuse and having to fight off malware and exploits through Adobe Flash Player, Adobe has announced that they will be taking advantage of App Sandbox which should help restrict malicious code from running outside of OS X Maverick’s native browser, Safari.

Thanks to the App Sandbox feature, it will allow Adobe to limit the plugin’s capabilities to read and write files, along with defining what sort of assets their Flash Player will be able to access. In a statement made by Adobe platform security specialist, Peleus Uhley, “Safari users on OS X Mavericks can view Flash Player content while benefiting from these added security protections […] We’d like to thank the Apple security team for working with us to deliver this solution.” This is not the first time that Adobe has attempted sandboxing as they have done so with other browsers in the past, such as with Google Chrome, Mozilla’s FireFox, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but we guess Safari has since been added to that list.

Adobe To Sandbox Flash Player For Safari Users original content from Ubergizmo.

Some users have noticed an update this week of their Safari desktop web browser app bringing about an OS X Mavericks-specific feature: Push Notifications for their Notifications Center. This feature was spoken about earlier this year at WWDC 2013 and has been active for many users working with the Beta build of OS X Mavericks […]