Apple issues Safari 7.0.4 and 6.1.4 updates to fix WebKit vulnerabilities

By AppleInsider Staff

Apple on Wednesday released new versions of Safari for OS X 10.9 Mavericks and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, patching two bugs related to WebKit that could allow malicious sites to run code on a user's computer.

According to Apple, Safari 7.0.4 for OS X 10.9 Mavericks and Safari 6.1.4 for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion both address a WebKit flaw in which arbitrary code could be executed on a host computer when visiting a malicious website. The same issue can also cause Safari to unexpectedly crash.

A second problem with WebKit's handling of unicode characters in URLs that allows a maliciously crafted URL to send out false postMessage origins, thus overcoming the receiver's origin check. The issues was resolved through enhanced encoding and decoding.

The latest Safari for OS X versions come a month and a half after the previous Safari 7.0.3 and 6.1.3 updates were released in early April. The older iterations brought granular control over push notifications and support for new top-level domain names like ".cab" and ".clothing."

Safari 7.0.4 and 6.1.4 can be downloaded for free via Software Update.