Apple bolsters QuickTime defenses

Apple is adding several anti-hacking features to QuickTime in an effort to build up the media player's defenses.

Ryan Naraine reports that exploit prevention mechanisms have been added to QuickTime in its latest batch of patches.

Ryan notes:

According to a source familiar with Apple's moves, QuickTime for Windows Vista now features ASLR (address space layout randomization), a security technology that randomly arranges the positions of key data areas to prevent malware authors from predicting target addresses.

ASLR, which has been used by Apple to add code scrambling diversity to Mac OS X Leopard, is used in tandem with additional security features to reduce the effectiveness of exploit attempts.

Apple has also hardened QuickTime with stack buffer safety checking and function call hardening.

The moves are important as QuickTime has been a big target for hackers. Nice to see Apple is on the case.