This article is more than 1 year old

Apple punts patches for holes in Pages and OS X, Windows iTunes

Tech titan blats bugs in media player, WebKit, libraries and word processor

Apple has issued updates to squash vulnerabilities in the OS X and Windows versions of iTunes and the word-processor app Pages.

The iTunes 11.1.4 update will also patch security bugs in the Safari application and in underlying software such as the WebKit browser engine and a pair of library components. Users running iTunes on Windows XP or later, and OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) and later, are advised to install the update as soon as possible.

The iTunes security update is part of a larger version 11.1.4 release that also includes stability fixes and the ability to view wish-lists while browsing the local library.

For OS X users, the latest iTunes will only address one security flaw: a programming blunder in the iTunes Tutorial component that could allow an attacker to tamper with the help tool and insert additional data or misleading instructions via a network connection.

Meanwhile, users running the Windows edition of iTunes will receive not only the iTunes Tutorial update but also fixes for WebKit which, if exploited, could potentially allow an attacker to remotely execute code or extract data by way of a man-in-the-middle attack.

In total, the iTunes update addresses 16 WebKit flaws, many of which were fixed last year in iOS and Safari which also rely on WebKit.

Other security bugs tackled by the iTunes on Windows update include man-in-the-middle remote code execution vulnerabilities in the iTunes libxml and libxslt components, both of which could in theory be exploited by interfering with an iTunes Store network connection.

A separate pair of security updates for Apple's Pages software has also been released: versions 5.1 and 2.1 fix a bug that allows a maliciously crafted Microsoft Word document to execute code on a vulnerable Mac. The vulnerability, triggered by a double-free, affects kit running Mac OS X 10.9 and iOS 7.

Users can obtain the aforementioned fixes from Apple's download site or through the Software Update component. ®

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