The researchers with Intrepidus Group told an audience at the Infiltrate conference being held this week in Florida that they were able to locate and obtain the authentication token sent between the two devices during the connection and access the user’s email and other sensitive information, according to Kaspersky Lab’s Threat Post blog.
The PlayBook’s operating system puts the authentication token for the Bridge session, which uses a BlueTooth wireless connection, in a location that is readable for a hacker who knows how to find it, the researchers explained.
"While the Bridge is active, the token is in a place that is essentially world readable. The .all file being in a place that is world readable is the thing that causes the problem with the Bridge sessions", Lanier was quoted by Threat Post as saying.
In a statement, RIM said: “The BlackBerry PlayBook issue described at the Infiltrate security conference has been resolved with BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, which is scheduled to be available as a free download to customers in February 2012. There are no known exploits, and risk is mitigated by the fact that a user would need to install and run a malicious application after initiating a BlackBerry Bridge connection with their BlackBerry smartphone.”