Critical patches emerge for Mac OS X security holes

It’s not clear if Apple was feeling left out with all the attention being given to a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but they have issued a security update for users of their Mac OS X operating system.

2010’s first security update from Apple is designed to better protect its users from hacker attacks, and patches a dozen vulnerabilities in a variety of components including CoreAudio, the Adobe Flash Player plug-in, ImageIO, Image RAW and OpenSSL.

Apple security update for Mac OS X

If hackers took advantage of these security flaws they could potentially infect users by getting them to open an audio file or tricking them into visiting a boobytrapped website.

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The update to Flash Player tackles the critical security problems reported by Adobe in early December.

As usual, Mac users can update their systems via Software Update or by visiting the Downloads section of Apple’s website.


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "The AI Fix" and "Smashing Security" podcasts. Follow him on Bluesky and Mastodon, or drop him an email.

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