Apple Releases Security Update 2003-08-14

Apple Computer has released Security Update 2003-08-14 for Mac OS X, a 1.1 MB download available via Software Update. The release corrects an off-by-one programming error in a FreeBSD networking function which could potentially be exploited to give a remote user root-level access to a Mac OS X system. The problem was originally found in the wu-ftpd FTP server, and impacts FreeBSD Unix and other FreeBSD-derived operating systems, including Solaris and some flavors of Linux. As of this writing, Apple has not updated its Mac OS X security information page or provided any substantive information about the update. However, as yet there are no known instances of this potential problem having been exploited under Mac OS X or any other operating system.