Opera Unite May Open New Avenues of Attack for Criminals

Opera has integrated a number of new features to its Opera 10 browser that will soon be available in the market. It is believed that one of the features will catch the attention of cyber criminals.

The new browser from Opera is named Opera Unite. The company is marketing its new browser as an excellent platform for the development of next-generation websites, but some security analysts see it as the best friend of botmaster.

Opera Unite enables anyone to control server from his desktop. It also links with an Opera proxy server that permits the browser to provide content to the rest of the Internet.

This has emerged as a great solution for a number of problems of home users who wish to host their own web pages. The new browser saves users from worrying about firewall configuration and blocking of web server traffic by Internet Service Providers. However, it gives precious resources to hackers quite easily.

In fact, hackers have become more dependent on website hacking for the propagation of their malicious codes for past few years. Therefore, they have created advanced web-hacking software such as Gumblar program that can infect thousands of web pages in a very short period of time.

With the launch of Opera Unite, cyber criminals will have a big resource to craft more refined attacks. The logic behind the inclusion of web server feature in the browser is to eliminate the middleman who is considered to provide opportunity to criminals to reach the source.

While the plan seems to be a step forward towards giving users server access privileges, they lack appropriate security infrastructure to solely detect such attacks. Moreover, the running of Window's firewall could prove extremely helpful in blocking unsolicited traffic but one should not forget that purposefully running and ad web services on system through opera's integrated web server is a legitimate traffic.

Thus, if a person permits people to access his personal system, then he is inviting a number of potential attacks.

At present, Opera accounts for a very small share of the desktop browser market. If Opera manages to double the number of its users through this product, it will result into the huge success that turns into material financial impact, said security experts.

Related article: Opera 9.1 Browser Introduces phishing Alert

» SPAMfighter News - 6/26/2009