Vulnerability in Apple Safari Could Allow Information Disclosure

Executive Summary

Microsoft is providing notification of the discovery and remediation of a vulnerability affecting Apple Safari version 5.05 and earlier. Microsoft discovered and disclosed the vulnerability under coordinated vulnerability disclosure to the affected vendor, Apple Inc. Apple Inc. has remediated the vulnerability in Safari.

A vulnerability exists in the way Safari handles certain content types. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause Safari to execute script content and disclose potentially sensitive information. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability would gain sensitive information that could be used in further attacks.

Microsoft Vulnerability Research reported this issue to and coordinated with Apple to ensure remediation of this issue. The vulnerability has been assigned the entry, CVE-2010-1420, in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures list. For more information, including information about updates from Apple, see Apple Safari Security Alerts.

Mitigating Factors

• In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these Web sites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker’s Web site.
• The vulnerability cannot be exploited automatically through e-mail. For an attack to be successful, an attacker must convince a user to click a link in an e-mail message that takes users to the attacker’s Web site.