Developers of the highly used privacy-focused browser known as the Brave web browser had to frantically scamper in order to fix a certain bug that actually prevented the browser from leaking certain visited Tor addresses in the DNS traffic.
The popular anonymous browser known as Brave had actually sported a Tor mode ever since 2018 in order to allow its users to visit the said .onion address on the dark web even without having to use another separate Tor browser.
Can you be tracked on Tor?
According to an article by TechRadar, an anonymous security researcher actually demonstrated that the said browser was secretly sending the queries for the supposed .onion addresses to a particular public DNS resolver for everyone to see. This basically defeats the initial purpose of using Tor in the first place.
Following the whole situation, James Kettle of PortSwigger Web securities as well as a number of different security researchers were reportedly able to independently verify the particular privacy-issue.
As it had gained traction, Brave had also confirmed that they had actually been aware of the given leak ever since 2021 when it was then reported to its said HackerOne-run bounty program.
Is Tor safe to use?
According to certain reports, Brave's said internal ad blocker component was reportedly responsible for inadvertently leaking the particular .onion domains.
The new issue had already been addressed in a recent development nightly stream of the said browser according to Brave's current security engineer known as Yan Zhu.
As for the other usual practice new changes that are currently being tested in development branches of a certain software, in order to spot for any particular regression, before they would then push towards stabilizing the mainline release.
Zhu has written that ever since the particular issue is now becoming public, the developers were all uplifting the fix towards a stable hotfix. Shortly after, Brave had then publicly released a new updated stable release of its v1.20.108 that supposedly fixed the leak.
Read Also: NSA might tag you as extremist when you use Tor, other privacy online services
Does Tor hide my location?
For those that are unfamiliar with Tor, it is a particular browser that can be used with different search engines that reportedly reroute the users IP address and bounce it around to different locations before finally exiting a certain location to assume that supposed IP address.
Basically, it is able to mask the user's location by switching the IP address around and users can refresh this option in order to get a new location.
According to an article by Wired, Tor is reportedly used sometimes for people to be able to access the dark web as well as other activities. However, for those that are just strictly privacy conscious, Tor might be a good browser to use since it reroutes the users activity rendering them hard to trace by other malicious characters.
This also protects the user from their information being easily taken since the hackers themselves won't be able to assume the user's IP address. Basically like a VPN except just a browser.
Related Article: With Facebook's Support, Tor Project's .Onion Domains Remain Hidden
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
