Apple on Tuesday said that it plans to release a fix next week to mitigate the newly uncovered 'Freak' security flaw affecting Safari browsers on its iOS and OS X operating systems. A group of researchers dubbed the flaw Freak, for "Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys." A vulnerability in web encryption technology could enable attackers to spy on communications of users with vulnerable software, including Apple's Safari browser and Google's Android browser, according to researchers who uncovered the flaw.

Google has not yet commented on the security flaw.

The bug left users of Apple and Google devices vulnerable to cyberattack when visiting hundreds of thousands of websites, including Whitehouse.gov, NSA.gov and FBI.gov.

The researchers found a way to force web browsers to use an form of encryption that was intentionally weakened to comply with U.S. government regulations that do not allow American companies to export the strongest encryption standards. Once they caused the site to use the weaker encryption standard, they were then able to break the encryption within a few hours.

According to noted cryptographer Matthew Green, who teaches cryptography at Johns Hopkins, the US government demanded the restriction during early 90's so the NSA could access foreign communications.