Research In Motion releases second PlayBook tablet update in under two weeks and with a major security fix

137

Canadian email mobile phone manufacturer RIM has announced that another version of the OS is now available for its PlayBook tablet devices, which brings the total number of releases to two – within the same number of weeks,with a major security issue blocked.

Research In Motion has made public this news a blog post to their http://blogs.blackberry.com site, which notes that the new over the air update will bring the build number up to v1.0.8.6067 – where the version deployed on November 24th was for v1.0.8.4985.
The BlackBerry PlayBook OS v1.0.8.6067 contains fixes and updates, which are all based around daylight savings time and also with a significant security update.
The security update relates to a vulnerability in file sharing on the tablet software. This is where an issue could allow an elevation of access privileges on a BlackBerry PlayBook service that is used to share files over a USB connection, between the tablet and a computer running BlackBerry Desktop Software.
This vulnerability cannot be exploited by a remote attacker and it presents a low security risk of elevation of privilege attacks against BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users, according to RIM. Although, a user could execute specially crafted code to use this vulnerability – in order to manipulate a BlackBerry PlayBook backup archive file, then alter a specific configuration file in order to gain root user privileges.