Quicktime Patches For Mac
Apple Monday patched 10 critical vulnerabilities in QuickTime, including one that was hinted at in a Mac hacking book three months ago. Patched by QuickTime 7.6.2 affect both the Mac and Windows versions, while two others affect only QuickTime for Windows XP and Vista. Apple described all 10 as allowing 'arbitrary code execution,' a phrase it uses to describe the most serious threats that if exploited, could result in a PC or Mac hijacking. Unlike vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle, Apple doesn't rank the bugs it fixes with a scoring or labeling system.
QuickTime Player Patch needs a rating. Be the first to rate this app and get the discussion started! The QuickTime Player Patch removes the metallic appearance from Quicktime 4.1 and puts theprogram back into a 'normal' window. Apple has released a security fix for its QuickTime media player to patch a. The Mac and Windows editions of QuickTime and said that the flaw affected Vista. Quicktime X is a great little piece of software. However, Quicktime X is very finicky on which codec/file format it can decode/play. Luckily, there are DOZENS of alternative video/media players and extensions available for the Mac.
Beware the and see why these. Monday's update was Apple's second this year for the player, which has been patched a total of 17 times in 2009; last year, Apple patched 30 QuickTime vulnerabilities. 'They're what one would expect for QuickTime, file format processing bugs,' said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, in an instant message. Storms had it right: All 10 vulnerabilities involved a file format issue of one sort or another. Three of the bugs were in how QuickTime parses movie files, two were in its handling of PICT image files and others were traced to problems dealing with JP2 (JPEG 2000), MS ADPCM-encoded (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) audio, PhotoShop and animation file formats. Apple has patched dozens of file format flaws in QuickTime over the years.
Last September, for instance, it in parsing PICT images, QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality) files, QuickTime movies, H.264-encoded movies and Indeo-encoded video. File format vulnerabilities, and lots of them, are to be expected with a program like QuickTime, said Pedram Amini, manager of security research at 3com's Austin, Texas-based TippingPoint. 'QuickTime has a huge attack surface,' said Amini, 'because of all the file formats it supports.'
Six of the vulnerabilities were reported or co-reported to Apple by TippingPoint's bug bounty program, the second time in the last three weeks that a cash-for-bugs scheme has contributed the majority of a vendor's flaws. Last month, TippingPoint's rival, VeriSign's iDefense, reported patched by Microsoft. The large number of bugs attributed to TippingPoint were a timing conicidence, said Amini.
Although the company typically passes along vulnerability reports to vendors as soon as it's vetted the bugs, there are times it holds them, then presents a batch to the vendor. 'If we have several submitted for the same application, we like to get a full view of all the vulnerabilities to make sure there aren't any that overlap,' said Amini. One of TippingPoint's half-dozen, the JP2 handling bug, was credited to Charlie Miller, a researcher with Independent Security Evaluators, and to Damian Put, a researcher who has sold bugs to TippingPoint in the past. Miller is undoubtedly the better known of the pair, having at the Pwn2Own hacking contest, held every March at the CanSecWest security conference.
Miller had revealed information about the JP2 bug in, a how-to book he and Dino Dai Zov published in March. In an earlier interview, Miller said that he had not actually disclosed the vulnerability, but he had provided all the information a competent researcher needed to root it out. TippingPoint, which was unaware of the clues Miller had given, paid Put for the bug, said Amini. 'We got that bug about a month after the book came out,' said Amini Monday. 'That happens about once every two months, where we end up paying twice for the same bug.' However, Put used a slightly different approach to find the vulnerability, Amini argued.
'His research was unique and he did some original work. And this wasn't his first Apple bug,' he said. NCircle's Storms warned users to take the QuickTime vulnerabilities seriously, even if bugs in the player have rarely been exploited. 'Anytime you can simply open a movie file and inject malware is bad news,' Storms said. 'Especially given how much of the Internet is now used for multimedia.
Most people don't expect to be attacked watching a movie - unless it's a horror movie.' Apple also updated iTunes Monday, releasing Version 8.2 to fix a in parsing 'itms:' URLs, and to prep the software for, the new operating system expected to launch next week at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. As is its practice, Apple skimped on details of the changes rolled into iTunes, although the Mac OS X Software Update noted: 'iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update.' Mac users can upgrade to QuickTime 7.6.2 and iTunes 8.2 using the operating system's built-in Software Update feature, while Windows users can either download the new QuickTime and iTunes from the or use the optional Windows update tool. This story, 'Apple Patches 10 Critical QuickTime Bugs' was originally published.
The newest version of QuickTime, 7.1.3, patches in how the application checks a variety of file formats, including QuickTime, FLC, and H.264 movies; and FlashPix and SGI images. In each case, a malformed file can trigger a heap, buffer, or integer overflow, or in one case, an exception, that then might let the attacker introduce his own code to the PC or Mac, essentially hijacking the computer. Although Apple does not rank its security updates, Danish security company Secunia collectively rated the QuickTime fix as 'Highly critical,' its second-most-dire label. 'In order to exploit this vulnerability, attackers must social engineer victims into visiting a Web site under their control,' read an, which was credited with reporting one of the vulnerabilities to Apple.
Quicktime Player For Mac
IDefense added that users of both Internet Explorer and Firefox were at risk. 'Testing shows that either browser can be used as an attack vector,' iDefense's warning went on. 'It is also possible to open this type of file directly from within QuickTime or from a playlist that QuickTime has opened.' The last time Apple patched QuickTime was in in the player program. QuickTime 7.1.3 can be downloaded from the, or the software can be updated by selecting Help Update Existing Software within the Windows edition.