Rather than repeating all the patches I’ll direct you to news.com which has a good summary of the patches along with links to the individual bulletins. The patches are available through automatic updates or individual downloads.

Happy patching and good luck.

Thirteen components are updated. Click the thumbnail to see the component list or visit the Apple Support Page for the complete details. Of special note is the Samba vulnerability that Apple has finally patched. Samba is an open source windows file sharing application that is bundled with OS X. A critical vulnerability was found in late may and almost immediately patched by the Samba team. Apple has released several security updates since then but none have included the Samba patch, until now. Samba is off by default but is enabled when turning on Windows sharing in System Preference -> Sharing.

The update is for both Intel and PPC based Macs running OS X 10.3.9 or OS X 10.4.10 including the standard OS and the Server OS. It’s available through Apple’s built-in software update service or as a standalone download. A computer restart is needed after applying the patch.

Apple also released Airport Extreme Update 2007-004. Details are lacking and Apple’s only comment is:

This update is recommended for all Intel-based MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini computers and improves the reliability of AirPort connections.

The WordPress Stats plugin by Automattic (Andy Skelton ) had a critical SQL injection vulnerability that could allow admin credentials to be stolen. The vulnerability was patched in version 1.1.1 and was released July 27th.

I typically turn off (deactivate) plugins before updating them and in this case I had to re-enter the API key when activating the updated plugin.

One “critical” and one “moderate” vulnerabilities are patched in this update. The critical update is “Unescaped URIs passed to external programs” which is similar to the vulnerability that was found when IE 7 passed a malformed URI to Firefox.

The moderate vulnerability is “Privilege escalation through chrome-loaded about:blank windows”. This was dependant on add-ons creating about:blank windows.

Two other vulnerabilities were rated as “critical” by the Firefox team. A critical rating means:

Vulnerability can be used to run attacker code and install software, requiring no user interaction beyond normal browsing.

Two vulnerabilities were rated as “high” which means:

Vulnerability can be used to gather sensitive data from sites in other windows or inject data or code into those sites, requiring no more than normal browsing actions.

The remaining three vulnerabilities where rated as moderate (1) or low(2).

The update will be installed through Firefox’s auto-update feature. You can force an update check by going to the Help on the menu and selecting “Check for Updates…”. You can also download the full version from the website and run the installation over your current installation. The update is for all languages on all operating systems.

The patch may be installed through the auto update feature of Flash Player or you can visit the About Flash Player page to see what version you have installed and download the update. You can also go directly to the Adobe Flash Player download page. If you run Flash under multiple browsers you’ll have to update the player for each browser. You’ll need to close all browser windows during the installation. The update is for Flash Player on both Windows and OS X.

The Quicktime update, to version 7.2 includes eight security vulnerability fixes some of which will allow code execution. It also includes updates to the H.264 codec, support for full screen viewing and “numerous bug fixes”. The update requires a reboot on both Mac and Windows.

The iTunes update brings iTunes to 7.3.1 and fixes a problem with iTunes 7.3 accessing the library. No other changes are documented.

Both patches are available through Apple software update or from the Apple download page.

Two of the patches affect Microsoft Office software:

MS07-036 is rated critical and affects all versions of Microsoft Excel from Excel 2000 on up. It also applies to the Office 2007 compatibility pack. It’s only rated critical for Excel 2000. Microsoft rates the other versions as “important”. The bulletin does not list any known issues.

MS07-037 is rated important and affects Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 only. The bulletin does not list any known issues.

One patch affects Vista only:

MS07-038 is rated moderate and affects Windows Vista, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. This patches a vulnerability in the Windows Vista firewall that could allow an attacker to gather information about a host. There are no known issues listed in the bulletin.

One patch affects .NET:

MS07-040 is rated critical and affects .NET versions 1.x and 2.x, version 3.x is not affected. All operating systems are affected if they have a vulnerable version of .NET installed. There are no known issues listed in the bulletin.

The final desktop patch, MS-07-041, is rated important and affects Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) when running on Windows XP SP2. Earlier versions of Windows XP may be affected but Microsoft only supports service pack 2. IIS is not installed by default on Windows XP.

The server patch is is MS07-039 and is a vulnerability in Active Directory that’s rated critical.

The patches are available through automatic update or can be downloaded individually from Microsoft.

The general consensus of the comments are that both applications contribute the the exploit. Firefox is the attack vector and fails to validate the malicious code but Microsoft contributes by not properly passing quotes to the command line. You need to visit a malicious website using IE in order to trigger the exploit.

In a response to a user comment Thor Larholm responded:

… Firefox is the current attack vector but Internet Explorer is to blame for not escaping ” (quote) characters when passing on the input to the command line. I agree that Firefox could have registered its URL handler with pure DDE instead and thereby have avoided the possibility of a command line argument injection, but IE should still be able to safely launch external applications safely.

What I find interesting is the complexity of the requirements leading to the exploit. Neither product is vulnerable alone since both must be installed and both products have a flaw that contributes to the vulnerability.

One is in Webcore and can allow cross-site scripting attacks.

The second patched vulnerability was in Webkit and could allow remote code execution.

The update is available through Software Update or as a standalone download and requires a reboot.