In a recent article we discussed the recently discovered QuickTime streaming flaw that threatens both Macs and Windows computers. Intego’s analysis has shown that this flaw affects both Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger, and Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard. This flaw–and the publicity it has garnered–are going to lead to a number of exploits. Since it is cross platform, Mac users are not safe from the oft-cited smaller footprint of the Mac market share; any exploit that targets a Windows computer will also affect Macs.
If you want to know exactly how this flaw works (not how to create an exploit, but rather what goes wrong), this extensive article goes into the technical details. This is for programmers only, or for those with in-depth knowledge of how computers work, since it discusses such things as “heap randomization” and “memory protection enforcement”, but even of you don’t speak that language, you may get a better idea of this type of flaw, and of how complex computer security can be.
