Apple follows Lion with major Safari patch

by Steven Mostyn - Jul 22 2011, 08:05

In yet more Apple-flavoured news, the diligent folks over in Cupertino have this week released a wide-ranging security bulletin that addresses no less than 58 flaws connected to the Safari web browser.

Of those potential issues, the ‘Safari 5.1’ patch clamps down on 43 connected to the browser’s WebKit engine, which, if left unattended, could lead to malicious attacks against systems running Safari on either Microsoft or Apple operating software.

Although Apple does not classify potential exploit risk levels in the same way as Microsoft, some of the holes plugged by the latest release deal with cross-scripting flaws, buffer and integer overflows, and multiple memory corruption holes.

Not just carrying a wealth of vulnerability mitigations, Safari 5.1 also introduces a selection of security-related features.

These include a cookie monitoring and management through Privacy Panes, a Private AutoFill tool for filling specific information into Web forms, and Sandboxing for increased protection against system hijacking and the theft of sensitive data.

The Safari 5.1 update is recommended for anyone running the Safari browser on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP (SP2 or later), Mac OS X, and Mac OS X Server.

In related news, Apple has said more than one million customers have already purchased the newly unleashed Mac OS X 10.7 computer operating system (a.k.a. Lion).

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