Apple issues patches for Mac OS X
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Apple on Tuesday issued patches for 67 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X, including two security bugs that were exploited by IT security pros as part of an Apple-promoted "Pwn2Own" hacking contest in March.
Charlie Miller, an analyst for Independent Security Evaluators in Baltimore, won $5,000 after using a flaw in Safari to hack a MacBook in less than 10 seconds. Another hacker from Germany who would only give the name Nils won $15,000 for exploits in IE 8, Safari, and Firefox.
Apple would not reveal the details of the exploits and Miller and the other hacker are prevented by contest rules from disclosing how they pulled it off.
The security hole Miller discovered allows a remote attacker to gain control of a machine simply by getting the computer user to click on a malicious URL from the Safari browser, CNET reported.
Apple issued security patches for flaws in Safari 4 Public Beta and Safari 3.2.3 in its Tuesday update. According to the Apple security update, "Apple does not disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until a full investigation has occurred and any necessary patches or releases are available."
Security Update 2009-002 for Mac OS X 10.5.7 contained fixes for security holes in multiple programs that were susceptible to arbitrary code execution.
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