A security vulnerability in Opera 10.50 and previous versions of the web browser was uncovered by security research company VUPEN Security. The issue is caused by a buffer overflow error when the user visits a website with malformed HTTP headers. The security vulnerability has been confirmed to be working on Opera 10.50 for Windows XP SP3 with the likelihood that other operating systems and Opera versions are affected as well.
The security company claims that that the vulnerability can be exploited by attackers to crash the browser and execute code on the computer system. Opera was contacted by The Register after the disclosure of the vulnerability.
According to information posted on The Register website a patch is already in the making. Opera is also not sure that the vulnerability can be exploited at all but confirmed that it can be used to crash the web browser. DEP, the Data Execution Prevention module, mitigates the problem said Opera spokesman Thomas Ford.
Opera users should make sure that DEP is enabled in their operating system. It is recommended to only access trustworthy websites until a patch is released or switch to another web browser in the meantime.
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