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Apple fixes OS X bug that crashes Safari

Updated Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007, at 3:33 p.m. EST.

Apple last week revised its most recent security update, fixing a bug in the series of patches that causes its Safari web browser to crash.

Security Update 2007-009 v1.1, issued Friday, fixes a bug that causes Safari to unexpectedly quit when browsing some websites, according to an advisory released by Apple.

There is no change to the fix's security content, and the patch installs over its predecessor, according to Apple, which recommended that users with unpatched Macs install the latest version of the fix.

Apple's Dec. 17 patch bundle, which corrected at least 40 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X, was rated “highly critical” by Secunia, a Copenhagen-based vulnerability monitoring organization.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant also released a revised version of last week's patch for Safari Beta 3 for Windows XP and Vista that fixes a bug causing the browser to unexpectedly quit while viewing some websites.

During an unusually patch-heavy December, Apple released a new version of its popular QuickTime media application to close three security vulnerabilities, one of which was being actively exploited. A fix for Java, cleansing 18 flaws, was also released this month.

Amol Sarwate, head of the vulnerability research lab at Qualys, told SCMagazineUS.com today that the size of the patch bundle could have been a reason that Apple's researchers failed to catch the bug.

“Usually this would come out in the extensive testing before the release, but this time there was a fairly large amount of patches in the security update and I think they just didn't catch the issue,” he said. “Apple had released something similar before, but that was to add more fixes to a [previous] patch. In May of 2007 they re-released the 2007-004 patch to add new fixes.”

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