After 18 years, the “0.0.0.0-Day” vulnerability in Internet browsers on macOS and Linux finally seems to have come to an end. Google and Safari are closing the leak.

It was Oligo Security that raised the alarm in April about “0.0.0.0-day,” a browser vulnerability. The vulnerability affects almost all browsers, although macOS and Linux seem to be particularly vulnerable. Attackers can exploit the vulnerability to remotely change settings, view protected information, or even execute code.

18 years

Google and Apple are stepping in and closing the vulnerability in the Chromium and Safari engines. They had more than enough time to do so: 0.0.0.day was first discovered in Firefox in 2006 and a first public report was published in 2008. But the vulnerability remained open all these years until it was discovered again at the beginning of the year.

The vulnerability takes advantage of a lack of standardization between browsers around the IP address 0.0.0.0. This is a “free” IP address that public web services can use to communicate with local network services. 0.0.0.0 then represents all IP addresses connected to the local network. Since the IP address is free to use, malicious attackers can contact local servers from a malicious website.

After 18 years, Google and Apple decided they had had enough and closed the 0.0.0 leak with an update. With the update, the address can no longer be used by external sites. Firefox is not taking immediate action for fear of compatibility issues, but promises to look for a solution.