Apple issues massive security update for Mac OS X
Apple today issued multiple updates for Mac OS X and Java that patched 55 bugs, including one for its Safari Web browser that prompted a security researcher to blast the company for a half-hearted approach to security.
The updates were the largest released by Apple in nearly a year.
The year's first bug updates from Apple patched 48 security vulnerabilities in the company's operating system and its components, four in Apple's implementation of Sun Microsystems Inc. 's Java, two non-security flaws it admitted it had introduced with faulty code in Mac OS X 10.5.6, and one fix it said was a "proactive security measure." The majority of the bugs -- 32 altogether -- were in open-source components or software not originally crafted by Apple, as in the case of the quartet of Java flaws.
But the Safari vulnerability may be the one most people remember.
According to Brian Masterbrook, one of the three researchers Apple credited with reporting the Safari bug, Apple had information about the flaw more than seven months ago. "After six months passed without a fix, I decided to post a warning on January 11, 2009, due to my judgment that this issue could be exploited at any time as long as it remained unfixed," Masterbrook said in an entry to his blog Thursday , after Apple had delivered its updates. Masterbrook had posted some information about the bug, as well as a workaround to temporarily disable the RSS feed feature in the browser, in a Jan. 11 warning.
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Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
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