In early October Apple released a small series of patches for Mac OS X version 10.2 and later. Most of the fixes in this group blocked possible denial-of-service problems that are, to date, theoretical. For example, one addresses vulnerability in a Unix printing system that might expose passwords to hackers, in uncommon situations. In the Windows world, no sooner is an OS hole publicized than someone writes a hack to exploit it. Since the last Mac OS X security update was the third in a month, and because some of the holes looked ripe for exploiting, I have to wonder whether the Mac is now attracting more unwanted attention from hackers.

By Rebecca Freed at PC World.

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