Apple Patches 13 Security Flaws

Apple released its fifth security update of 2007 on Friday, correcting 13 bugs in both client and server versions of its Mac OS X operating system. The most serious security hole could lead to arbitrary code execution or a denial of service attack, although most require local access to the Mac.

Many of the flaws patched by Apple are located in UNIX applications that ship with its operating systems. BIND, crontab, fetchmail, file, PPP, ruby, screen and texinfo have all been updated. Apple's own iChat application has also been patched to correct a buffer overflow that could be exploited by an attacker on a local network. More information is available on Apple's Web site.