Mac Security In Spotlight - MacBook Air Hacked, Apple Patch Times

A MacBook Air running an up to date installation of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard was the first laptop to fall in last week's CanSecWest PWN2OWN contest, casting the spotlight once again on the Mac's security.

The contest pitted a MacBook Air against a Vista laptop and a Ubuntu Linux laptop, all fully patched. While all 3 laptops did not fall the first day which only allowed attacks against the base OS for a prize of $20,000 (+laptop), the MacBook Air reportedly took only 2 minutes to fall on day 2 when conference rules were relaxed to include all OS-bundled software for a prize of $10,000 (+ laptop).

While details of the exploit are under non-disclosure while Apple works on the issue, the attack was levied against Safari, after the user was directed to a specially crafted website (as allowed by the rules). The exploit has been reported to be an overflow bug in Webkit.

The remaining two laptops survived the rest of the second day, but the Vista laptop fell the following day when Adobe Flash player was installed as the rules were further relaxed to allow for attack of popular 3rd party applications. The Linux laptop was not exploited.

While Apple is aware of and working on the vulnerability, a recent study has claimed that Apple's response time to such 0-day vulnerability patches lags significantly behind that of Microsoft.

The study, conducted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, analyzed 658 vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple, all of which were high and medium risk according to the National Vulnerability Database.

"Apple was below 20 [unpatched vulnerabilities at disclosure] consistently before 2005," [said researcher Stefan Frei]. "Since then, they are very often above. So if you have Apple and compare it to Microsoft, the number of unpatched vulnerabilities are higher at Apple." [...]

"We think that Apple had fewer vulnerabilities early on, and they were just surprised or not as ready or not as attentive," Frei said. "It looks like Microsoft had good relationships earlier with the security community."

Over the past few years, Microsoft has tried to cultivate a closer relationship with the security community in order to encourage researchers to give it a heads-up about software problems. Apple, however, doesn't appear to have that same sort of engagement yet, and, "based on our findings, this is hurting them," Frei said.

A spot-check of security firm Secunia's statistics show that 6% of 113 bugs found in Apple's Mac OS X operating system from 2003 to 2008 remain unpatched.

Popular Stories

iOS 19 Mock WWDC25 Feature

iOS 19 Expected to Run on These iPhones

Monday March 31, 2025 5:28 pm PDT by
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
watchOS 11 Thumb 2 1

Apple Releases watchOS 11.4 With Sleep Alarm Update

Tuesday April 1, 2025 10:34 am PDT by
Apple today released watchOS 11.4, the fourth major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.4 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2. watchOS 11.4 can be downloaded on a connected iPhone by opening up the Apple Watch app and going to General > Software Update. To install the new software,...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4

Monday March 31, 2025 11:27 am PDT by
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC. It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
macOS Sequoia Feature

Apple Releases macOS Sequoia 15.4 With Mail Categorization and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:04 am PDT by
Apple today released macOS Sequoia 15.4, the fourth major update to the macOS Sequoia operating system that launched in September. macOS Sequoia 15.4 comes two months after the launch of macOS Sequoia 15.3. Mac users can download the ‌‌macOS Sequoia‌‌ update through the Software Update section of System Settings. It is available for free on all Macs able to run macOS 15. With...
iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple Card iPhone 16 Pro Feature

Visa and American Express Vying to Win Apple Card Deal in 'Fierce' Fight

Tuesday April 1, 2025 1:50 pm PDT by
Visa wants to pay Apple approximately $100 million to be the new payment network for the Apple Card, reports The Wall Street Journal. As of right now, the Apple Card is on the Mastercard payment network, but that is set to change because Apple is ending its partnership with Goldman Sachs. Both American Express and Visa are vying to replace Mastercard as Apple's card services provider, while...