Apple Patches Leopard

Apple has released a huge security rollout for its products including its latest OS, Leopard. The latest update to Mac OS X 10.5.1, which weighs in at 321.5 Mb includes changes to a host of Leopard features, such as fixing a problem that cripples some software like Skype, when the firewall was put or setup in its most flexible option of data transfer monitoring. It also tackles problems formatting drives before they can be used with Time Machine, the integrated backup and restore software.

Among other fixes Apple has put out a total of 51 patches, 41 of which tackled vulnerabilities in the Mac OS X operating system. Among these 41 patches about 15 are rated as extremely critical i.e. can lead to a system being completely compromised. The remaining 26 deal with various other problems like “drive-by” web hacks to system oriented hacks which have to be maliciously applied by a person sitting on the machine.

The remaining 10 fixes are for their Safari browser. These include fixes for “Cross-site scripting” vulnerabilities and other “drive-by” hacks. One of these updates was however crucial because it permitted remote code execution.

For further details please head on to this security advisory.