Apple Patches Flaws in Mac OS X
Apple Computer … has released an update of its flagship Mac OS X operating system to fix seven serious security holes that could leak sensitive information and lead to DoS and system access attacks.

Apple pushed out the new version -- Mac OS X 10.2.5 -- after security research firm @Stake warned warned of known holes in the operating system's implementations of OpenSSL, Apache Server, Sendmail and Samba and two new vulnerabilities in the DirectoryService that can cause a denial-of-service.

A vulnerability alert from Secunia tagged the security holes with an "extremely critical" rating, especially because of the known Sendmail flaw that could allow an attacker to gain control of a unpatched Sendmail server.

In urging all users to upgrade to the latest Mac OS X 10.2.5 release, Apple said the previous versions contained an information disclosure vulnerability in OpenSSL that can be exploited by intruders to gain knowledge of the pre-master secret, which can be used to identify the session keys used during SSL/TLS sessions.

It also plugs an exceptional handling error issue in the Apache Server which can lead to denial-of-service attacks if an attacker sends multiple HTTP requests, which include large chunks of linefeeds.

The new holes, in DirectoryServices, leaves the Mac OS X susceptible to several attacks, ultimately allowing a local user to obtain root privileges. "In order for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability, they must first cause DirectoryServices to terminate. This can be done by simply connecting to port 625 repeatedly using an automated program," @Stake warned.…
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