Sunday, April 22, 2007

Nintendo's Wii security problems fixed?

Having a browser on board is asking for security problems even if it's on a gaming console. It seems that the popular next generation games console the Nintendo Wii has garnered some attention from the IT Security community. They have been picking holes in the software that makes up the Wii. Don’t worry, we’re not going to see thousands of Zombie Wii forming botnets just yet. The vulnerability that was found in the web browser Opera a few months ago can affect the browser included in the Wii. Now it seems that Opera for the Wii (aka ‘Internet Channel’) that was posted originally to the store was a pre-patch version of Opera. So anyone that downloaded the original Internet Channel for the Wii will have installed a vulnerable version of Opera. Although the current available exploits only crash your poor Wii, it is possible that someone could turn this into something more than a DoS but remote code execution exploit. But luckily the window of opportunity is closing for this vulnerability. On April 12 a patched version of Opera was added to the store for new Wii owners to download and existing owners to update from. I recommend that existing Wii owners look to upgrade ASAP the installed version of the Internet Channel they have on their console.
When will we have a security problem for the new Playstation 3 which has also browsing capabilities? Ah well ... I love my XBOX 360 which has currently no browsing possibilities.