Mac security alert

A UK government organization responsible for gathering information on IT security incidents has issued two security advisories regarding recently identified vulnerabilities in Mac OS X. UNIRAS – the Unified Incident Reporting and Alert Scheme – issued the advisories. The first advisory states that "several security vulnerabilities have been identified in Mac OS X Jaguar and Panther," and describes the risk as "high". This security vulnerability is described as a "pre-authentication, remotely exploitable stack buffer overflow that allows an attacker to obtain administrative privileges".

The other advisory describes a Mac OS X file server authentication vulnerability – also "high" risk. It is described as a buffer overflow vulnerability in the way the AppleFileServer handles certain authentication requests. UNIRAS suggests that "a remote attacker could overflow a buffer, gain root privileges, and execute arbitrary commands on the system."

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