Gather ’round, friends — it’s time for another edition of Good News, Bad news. We’re going to mix things up a bit this time and start off with the bad news.
Bad News: A vulnerability has been discovered in the BlackBerry OS 6.0 browser that would allow remote hackers access to your device.
Good News: Actually, there are a few pieces of good news here:
- A) Though the exploit is technically public as it was demonstrated at the Pwn2Own 2011 contest, there are no known cases of it actually happening in the wild.
- B) If the hacker does get access to your device, they’re limited to perusing things stored in media storage (internal or external). That’s not good for people who store secret work documents or nudie pics on their handset, but it at least means they can’t access your e-mail, calendar, or contacts.
- C) There’s a temporary workaround: disable Javascript in the browser. Here’s the run down on how to do that (expand “Workaround”.)
Now, what about a more permanent fix that doesn’t boil down to handicapping your handset? RIM says they’re currently “investigating the issue to determine the best resolution for protecting BlackBerry smartphone users” — in other words, they’re working on it.