Apple releases bumper pack of Christmas security fixes

Apple has released a bumper Christmas pack of security patches, which will fix 21 vulnerabilities affecting users of Mac OS X.

The patches fix a number of flaws which could lead to remote execution or denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. There are also fixes for serious issues with the plug-in for Adobe Flash which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code.

The Mac OS X 10.5.6 update is the eighth this year, and comes in the same month that Apple first "recommended" anti-virus and then performed a U-turn by claiming it was ready "out of the box."

On Sophos security expert Graham Cluley's blog he revealed that many of his readers were sympathetic to the opinion that Mac users needed to take computer security seriously (though a reader did call him up on the fact that Sophos sold Mac anti-virus).

IT manager Jon from Uxbridge' said that it was a shame that Apple had responded to the issue by implying that users were perfectly safe with Macs as is'.

He said: "This is exactly the sort of thing that makes users complacent indeed, the two people in the office that use Macs at home are convinced that they are 100 per cent safe from anything and get quite heated when I suggest that this isn't the case.

"The problem is that these two are the Director and Associate Director. I have always advocated the use of virus protection on any computer and will continue to do so. To use an automotive analogy: Mac users may still have a different engine to Windows folk but the bodywork these days is exactly the same."

If you want to know more about the issues of anti-virus for Apples or Mac malware complacency, why not listen to our podcast on the issue or watch our video in which security guru Eugene Kaspersky shares his thoughts on Mac and open source threats.