The US Government has added its weight to warnings about a vulnerability in Apple Mac OS X.
The US computer emergency response team (US-CERT) issued an alert on Thursday in the US, reporting a failure in the way OS X handles corrupted disk image files -- for Macs, the .dmg file format.
A disk image file is a digital representation of the contents and structure of a storage device like a CD or DVD. According to US-CERT, the vulnerability in OS X may allow an attacker using malformed .dmg files to corrupt system memory in a way that could allow arbitrary code execution, or cause a denial of service.
The researcher who found the vulnerability claimed it is remotely exploitable as Apple's Safari browser can be set to automatically open dmg files downloaded .from external sources. The researcher claimed this can be prevented by changing the browser preferences and deactivating the functionality for opening "safe" files after downloading.
However, the US-CERT vulnerability note said the organisation was "currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem".
Tom Espiner reported for ZDNet UK from London
