Risk: Medium
Apple Computer have issued a patch for a security hole in Mac OS X that could have allowed hackers to take over vulnerable machines, but the company went out of its way to downplay the importance of the bug.
The vulnerability in the operating system's Help View application allows attackers to craft a special URL that will execute any application, command or script on the victim's computer. To be hit by the bug, a user would have to visit a malicious web site, or be lured by email into following the URL. The bug works on most browsers, including Internet Explorer for Mac, Mozilla and Apple's Safari.
A hacker called "Lixlpixel," who claims to have reported the bug to Apple on February 23rd, discovered the hole. It wasn't until nearly three months passed without any response from the computer maker that they went public with the hole, when discussions about it began showing up in online forums. Security services firm Secunia confirmed the vulnerability and released a formal advisory rating it extremely critical.
In a statement issued along with the patch, Apple called the hole a "theoretical vulnerability" that never placed customers at risk.
The bug is easy to use, and benign demo scripts are freely available online. But Lixlpixel said in an email interview he's not aware of anyone having wielded it maliciously. "As far as I know there is not one single report of an exploit," he wrote.
Mac OS X users can install the patch through Apple's Software Update service, or through Apple's support web site.