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Apple patches more security holes

Hackers, black hats and bad guys seem to be paying closer attention to Mac OS X, after Apple patched another eight security holes in its flagship operating system yesterday.
Written by Luke Hopewell, Contributor

Hackers, black hats and bad guys seem to be paying closer attention to Mac OS X, after Apple patched another eight security holes in its flagship operating system yesterday.

The patches cover exploits for malicious embedded fonts, PDF documents, PNG picture files and the potential for hackers to pinch users' credentials in Mac OS X.

The company also highlighted "multiple vulnerabilities" in Samba, PHP and ClamAV.

Patch notes for the security update reveal that the majority of these issues could lead to "arbitrary code execution", which pertains to an attacker's ability to trigger unauthorised commands and processes on an infected system.

Back in June, Apple patched its Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system against a battery of Mac-specific malware and a Trojan Horse program disguised as iPhoto.

Paul Ducklin, Asia Pacific chief technology officer for security firm Sophos, told ZDNet Australia that Mac users still need to be vigilant about security despite their choice of operating system.

"The fact that Apple regularly has security patches for all flavours of its operating system does indicate that their OS doesn't have some magic, 'pixie-dust' security around it which users seem to think is there. While the risk of infection is low, it isn't non-existent," Ducklin said.

Apple urged Mac OS X users to install the latest patch to protect their systems.

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