Secunia

Apple Safari and Konqueror Embedded fails to validate the Common Name of a SSL certificate. This makes it possible to spoof SSL sites, so that users can't trust the authenticity of a SSL website.

SSL serves two main purposes; one is to ensure the authenticity of the server, which you are communicating with, the other is to provide encrypted communication. The authenticity part is completely broken when the Common Name isn't verified, since the user can't know if he is communicating with the host in the address bar.

Exploitation of this requires that a malicious person is able to perform DNS spoofing (eg. see CERT vulnerability note in "Other References" section).

Internet Explorer and Netscape suffered similar vulnerabilities a few years ago.

Solution
KDE advises users of KDE 2.2.2 to upgrade to either KDE 3.0.5a or KDE 3.1.2. A patch for version 2.2.2 has also been made available:
Further details available in Customer Area

Provided and/or discovered by
Simson L. Garfinkel and Jesse Burns

Changelog
Further details available in Customer Area

Original Advisory
http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20030602-1.txt

Other references
Further details available in Customer Area

Deep Links
Links available in Customer Area