Apple Software Contains Maximum Security Vulnerabilities

Secunia has revealed that Apple has been rated as the company with maximum number of security vulnerabilities in its software during the first half of 2010, as reported by techtree on July 22, 2010.

As per the Top 10 Vendors list, Oracle keeps the second place, followed by Microsoft (at the third place). These are followed by HP (on the fourth place), Adobe Systems, IBM, VMware, Cisco, Google and Mozilla come respectively.

According to the security researchers, Apple has got the first rank because of the increase in Mac sales, which have encouraged a large number of software developers to develop platform for Apple. Although the market has been ruled by Microsoft Windows for many years, it has faced a tough competition from the increasing sales of Apple Mac systems in recent times.

The security researches also mention that the ranking shows the real security lack in the Apple software. It should be noted that in spite of taking proper security measures by the top most vendors, a huge amount of vulnerabilities are detected in their software on a regular basis.

Cyber criminals take advantage of these vulnerabilities to spread malware and malicious items. In May 2010, a "highly critical" zero-day vulnerability has been detected in the new version of Apple's Safari browser, which allows the hackers harm the Windows PCs through malicious data.

The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has revealed that the vulnerabilities detected by Krystian Kloskowski (a Polish security expert) were first disclosed by Secunia, a vulnerability detecting service of Denmark.

Other than the malicious codes and malware, the vulnerabilities can be used for multistage threats, like email spam, phishing, stalking, and blackmailing, in case a user's identity is disclosed while visiting some inappropriate online sites

As per Secunia, there is a constant shift of security vulnerabilities from the first party to the third party. It is one of the most important trends in recent times.

The security expert advises to update the third party software on a regular basis to stop these attacks. They also suggest to avoid any unknown third party software.

Related article: Apple Patches QuickTime 13 Month Old Flaw

» SPAMfighter News - 8/4/2010