Mac OS X 10.6.3 released along with a security update

Apple has released the 10.6.3 update to their Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system. For Leopard, a security update has also been made available.

Apple has released a new update to their Mac OS X 10.6 operating system. For Snow Leopard, this is the third update since its launch in the summer of 2009, with it being a rather large patch.

As is the custom with such an update, the user won’t benefit from any new functions. On the other hand, it will correct a range of problems noted in this rather consequential list.

We can note reliability improvements for numerous elements, including QuickTime X, all applications based on OpenGL, printing, photo based screen savers, Bonjour, certain USB devices and DNS.

Other corrections are even more specific, covering particular needs. The release of this update is good news for users of software which is starting to get a little long in the tooth, as Rosetta can now open files which have the # or & characters contained in the name.


Increased security as well...
This 10.6.3 update also corrects a security fault which can also be found in Mac OS X 10.5 and their first server running the 2010-002 update. A total of 92 security vulnerabilities have also been corrected.

Computerworld, who looks for different issues with each release, picked up on 18 vulnerabilities specific to Leopard, in addition to 29 discovered in Snow Leopard. The two operating systems also shared 45 common vulnerabilities which have been corrected. These vulnerabilities affect a diverse range of applications and Mac OS X components, with it being possible to exploit some of these with remote code, information overflow or denial of service attacks.

We can almost say that it’s all to no avail though, as one of the winners of the Pwn2Own competition, Charlie Miller, points out that we will have to wait for the next update to correct the vulnerability which he exploited to get around Snow Leopard’s defences, allowing him to take control of a Mac computer through a weakness in Safari.

It is possible to download the updates from this page.