Safari 6.1.6 and Safari 7.0.6, the latest versions of Apple’s Web browser, come with fixes for several security vulnerabilities, some of which could be exploited to remotely execute arbitrary code.
Apple hasn’t provided specific details on the vulnerabilities, but the advisory published by the company reveals that they are memory corruption issues affecting WebKit, the open source rendering engine that powers the Web browser.
“Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution,” Apple noted in its advisory.
The flaws have been assigned the following CVE identifiers: CVE-2014-1384, CVE-2014-1385, CVE-2014-1386, CVE-2014-1387, CVE-2014-1388, CVE-2014-1389 and CVE-2014-1390. The issues were discovered by Apple, the Google Chrome Security Team and an anonymous researcher.
The vulnerabilities have been fixed in Safari 6.1.6 and Safari 7.0.6 through improved memory handling, Apple said. Users are advised to update their installations as soon as possible.
Over the past months, Apple has made an effort to address security flaws Safari, with this being the sixth update in ten months. In May, 22 security holes were fixed with the release of versions 7.0.4 and 6.1.4. In June, the company addressed 12 flaws in the Web browser, along with tens of other issues affecting iOS, OS X and Apple TV.
Last week, Apple informed developers that it will change the way OS X recognizes signed apps once OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 is out. Applications signed with “version 1” signatures will be blocked by the Gatekeeper anti-malware feature.
