Vulnerabilities

Over 60 Vulnerabilities Patched in Apple TV

Apple has patched more than 60 vulnerabilities with the release of Apple TV 7.2.1, including flaws that can lead to arbitrary code execution, application crashes, and information disclosure.

Eduard Kovacs

February 26, 2016

Apple has patched more than 60 vulnerabilities with the release of Apple TV 7.2.1, including flaws that can lead to arbitrary code execution, application crashes, and information disclosure.

The last time Apple issued an update for Apple TV was in April 2015 when it released version 7.2. It has since released two updates for tvOS, the operating system developed for the fourth generation of the company’s media player.

With the release of version 7.2.1, Apple resolved security holes in over 20 different components of the third generation of Apple TV, including WebKit, the kernel, the third-party app sandbox, Office Viewer, IOKit, ImageIO, FontParser, DiskImages, bootp, CloudKit, and various libraries.

The list of issues patched by Apple includes vulnerabilities that can be exploited for information disclosure, execution of unsigned code, arbitrary code execution, application crashes, and modifications to protected parts of the filesystem.

It’s worth pointing out that the vulnerabilities resolved by Apple on Thursday are not new. They were fixed last year in several other products, including OS X Yosemite 10.10.5, Safari 8.0.8, and El Capitan 10.11.

This is the fourth series of updates released by Apple in 2016. The Cupertino-based company previously released fixes for tvOS, Safari, OS X, iOS and QuickTime.

Apple has been trying to make its products increasingly secure, up to the point where even the company can’t hack into its customers’ devices. While many users and privacy advocates applaud the initiative, authorities are not too happy about it.

The FBI is currently trying to convince a judge to force Apple to create an alternative operating system for its iPhone that would allow investigators to brute-force the PIN on the phone of the San Bernardino shooter.

The tech industry is largely backing Apple on the decision to oppose a judge’s initial order asking the company to comply with the FBI’s request for what Apple CEO Tim Cook calls a “backdoor.” However, a recent survey showed that a majority of Americans have sided with the FBI.

Written By Eduard Kovacs

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

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