In the recent wake of news regarding a
security flaw that was located in the NTP, Apple has issued their first
automatic security update for Mac OS computers. Is this another case of too
little too late?after all, researchers are warning about new bugs all the time.
Previous to this, Apple have released security patches through their regular
software update system. This system requires a user’s approval.
Apple spokesman Bill Evans informed Reuters, “The
update is seamless. It doesn’t even require a restart.” The firm also said, the
latest bugs were so severe it felt it needed to get customers protected
immediately. The issue of the new Mac bugs that were found, were
mentioned as part of security bulletins that were issued last week by the
Department of Homeland Security and the Carnegie Mellon University Software
Engineering Institute.
The security bulletins identified dozens of
technology companies, including Apple, whose products may be vulnerable. This
particular vulnerability targets a component of the OS X operating system that
is called the network time protocol, (NTP) This is used for synchronising
clocks on computer systems. The protocol is a global method of synchronising
time over a network and has previously been exploited by hackers.
Even though Microsoft has been offering
automatic updates regarding security flaws for some time now, Apple
have chosen not to deploy their previously developed technology for
automatically pushing out security updates. The tech giant said that it did not
know of any cases where hackers had yet exploited the bug.
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