Aidan MalleyApple on Thursday night issued a hotfix for its QuickTime media player that patches a single but already exploited flaw in the software's handling of streaming content.
In recent days, a website known as Ourvoyeur.net has reportedly been hijacked and used to infect systems with malware that opens a back door for hackers. That exploit targets Windows users but could theoretically apply to Mac OS X as well given the existence of the flaw in Apple's own operating system, according to one report.
The QuickTime patch is available both for the critically affected Windows systems in a 20MB download but is also offered as a roughly 50MB fix for Mac OS X Panther, Tiger, and Leopard.
Malcolm Owen
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35 Comments
I'm patched, but is there a way to know if you've been "backdoored"?
I'm so sick of these endless security holes in Quicktime. Is there any way to remove this plugin from a Mac without breaking Safari?
Is there any way to remove this plugin from a Mac without breaking Safari?
Remove the quicktime components from /Library/Internet plug-ins.
I like that there's a link to a voyeur site in the article.
Remove the quicktime components from /Library/Internet plug-ins.
I like that there's a link to a voyeur site in the article.
Unless something changed, they said the name of the site, but there is no web link.
Unless something changed, they said the name of the site, but there is no web link.
Though there is no clickable web link, there is the complete URL of the site. Just out of curiosity, and after having applied the update, I entered the URL into Firefox to see what it gives. So, it is a nudity site and Firefox suddenly started hitting hard the hard disk and the UI almost froze up. I tried to kill it and it worked after several seconds of hard disk grinding. I hope it did nothing to my computer.