Security Update 2006-007 Available

Apple saves the day again :)

I may not be a programmer but how does increasing the security of the FontBook protect my computer?!? Just Curious.:)

Yay, they fixed the Installer hole! that one was just plain yuck.

No fix for the DMG bug as highlighted by the US CERT warning?

I may not be a programmer but how does increasing the security of the FontBook protect my computer?!? Just Curious.:)

They don't say but I assume it was possable for someone to make a carefully constructed "Trojan Horse" font such that when you tried to view it in Font Book something unexpected would happen. Likely Font Book failed to check for a buffer overflow and is corrected in this release.

I may not be a programmer but how does increasing the security of the FontBook protect my computer?!? Just Curious.:)

Problems with font book can actually cause problems with the rest of the system. Back when I was still using 10.2 I have some bad fonts in fontbook that kept causing problems with the entire system. As soon as I removed the fonts the problems stopped. It seemed weird to me too but it worked.

I may not be a programmer but how does increasing the security of the FontBook protect my computer?!? Just Curious.:)

Wish I could remember the specifics, but I remember reading (some years ago) how the way fonts are rendered makes them somewhat similar to executables. This is, if I remember correctly, not OS specific - the same theoretical issues exist in Windows, X11 font rendering, etc.

Sorry, I realize that without the specifics this raises more questions than it answers. :) But basically fonts are, theoretically at least, a potential exploit path.

Edit: Looks like the Linux on the XBox folks use this sort of thing to their advantage.

My C2D mbp booted up slow after installing this update. (after the initial restart. have yet to restart a second time).

Hey, anyone else notice that Apple included a patch for the vulnerability recently found in the old Airport cards? That's pretty cool.

I noticed this update before anyone even posted on here. Yippee to me.

Debating whether to install it on just the PPC or the Intel... any advice? I use the MB daily, but the iMac is the trustworthy machine.