Apple Patches Zero-Day Flaw


Apple’s Zero day flaw is no more.


Apple Security Update 2006-001 fixes the week old issue that US-CERT tagged with a Cyber Security Alert.

It also addresses 19 other issues in OS X, including improving security against worms which have just recently begun to slither through Apple’s core.


The zero-day issue involved how OS X 10.4.5 handles ZIP archives in the Safari Web browser. Arbitrary commands could
have potentially been executed automatically via Safari from a malicious site.


Though the issue remained open for over a week, there was simple workaround
provided early on that involved disabling automatic file opening on
downloads in Safari, or simply using another browser.


Apple’s security update also revealed a number of other significant flaws in
Safari that are now fixed with the patch.

CVE-ID: CVE-2006-0390/CVE-2005-4504 fixes a heap-based buffer overflow condition in
WebKit that could have potentially allowed an attack to execute arbitrary
code when a user visits a maliciously crafted Web page.


CVE-ID: CVE-2006-0387 also could have allowed arbitrary code execution from a
maliciously crafted Web page, in this instance as the result of JavaScript
that could trigger a stack buffer overflow.


The fix for CVE-ID: CVE-2006-0388 prevents cross-domain HTTP redirects, which could
have allowed a Web site to redirect to local resources and enable
a JavaScript to run on a user’s local domain.


CVE-ID: CVE-2006-0389 could have allowed Safari’s RSS syndication model
to run JavaScript embedded in a feed, which could have allowed code to run
outside of Safari’s security constraints.


The update also provides additional protections against worms such as Leap.A, which have recently begun to target Apple Mac users via the iChat instant
messaging application.

The update now includes something called “Download
Validation,” which is supposed to warn users of potentially unsafe file types
during transfers.


Other issues addressed in the Apple security update include fixes for perl,
rsync, mail, IPsec , apache_mod_php, automount, FileVault,
Directory Services and Mail. The potential impacts range from denial of
service to arbitrary code execution.

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