Google patches Gmail message-forwarding flaw

Researcher Petko Petkov of Gnucitizen said Sunday on his organisation's blog that Google had fixed the flaw.

Petkov told SCMagazineUS.com today that Google said no end-users were targeted via the flaw.

“According to them, no users were affected, mainly because no additional details on the issue were released before the fix,” he said.

Petkov released proof-of-concept code for the flaw on Sunday. Last week, he warned other researchers not to disclose details of the issue until Google fixes it, saying the vulnerability is “extremely nasty if you ask me.”

Petkov last week noted that, in the event of an attack, messages would continue to be forwarded to an attacker despite a fix because the filter, created by an exploit, is still present.

Last month, Petkov discovered a flaw in QuickTime and Firefox, as well as a vulnerability in Adobe Reader. Both flaws were quickly fixed by vendors last week.

A representative from the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant could not be immediately reached for comment today.

US-CERT warned in an advisory updated on Monday that the flaw “may allow a request from an attacker to be interpreted as originating from an authenticated user,” and noted Google's fix.

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