Apple to deprecate QuickTime for Windows after discovery of two flaws

Posted:
in General Discussion edited April 2016
Software security firm Trend Micro on Thursday announced the discovery of two new flaws in QuickTime for Windows, adding that Apple has plans to deprecate support for the software.




As noted by Reuters, the Department of Homeland Security's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) issued an alert on Thursday notifying PC users of the QuickTime vulnerability, saying the "only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows." Trend Micro also recommends a complete uninstall, noting Apple will no longer patch security holes in the software.

According to a separate report from The Register, Apple in March informed Trend Micro that QuickTime "would be deprecated on Windows and the vendor would publish removal instructions for users." The security firm notified Apple of the flaws last November.

Both vulnerabilities take advantage of heap overflows that can be triggered when a victim visits a malicious website or opens a tainted file. Attackers normally leverage these bugs to execute code on a target computer, usually with an endgame of gleaning sensitive data or inserting malware.

"We're not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently," said Christopher Budd, Trend Micro's global threat communications manager. "But the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now is to uninstall it."

QuickTime for Windows was last updated in January.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    Kill it. It hasn't received a major update on Windows in 11 years.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    I didn't have my glasses on so I read "defecate" instead of deprecate >:)
  • Reply 3 of 12
    I was unaware that they were even still offering it, TBH.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    NemWanNemWan Posts: 118member
    Let's take a moment remember the brilliant ploy to get Windows users to download QuickTime: No, before iTunes. The Phantom Menace trailer.
    firelock
  • Reply 5 of 12
    Does this deprecation have any effect on iTunes on Windows?
  • Reply 6 of 12
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,275member
    Does this deprecation have any effect on iTunes on Windows?
    Very good question, and the answer is "probably not." These flaws likely only affect the standalone QuickTime Player, but if the flaws were also present in iTunes Apple would certainly fix them. I think this just gives them the excuse they need to stop producing QuickTime for Windows as a media player; no PC user I know has ever used it for that.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    I still prefer Safari and QuickTime in Windows... Don’t do a lot of browsing over there, admittedly.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    I still prefer Safari and QuickTime in Windows... Don’t do a lot of browsing over there, admittedly.
    Safari for Windows was great. loved syncing my crappy client laptop with my mac
    browser, and the reader mode. worked so well. 
    tallest skil
  • Reply 9 of 12
    singularitysingularity Posts: 1,328member
    Does this deprecation have any effect on iTunes on Windows?
    No it's  still crap on windows
    VisualSeedcnocbui
  • Reply 10 of 12
    Over the years I notices a dozen or so consumer and some professional video suites for Windows installed QT as part of their package. Despite depreciation, I think it will linger out there for many years.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    So what do people use on Windows nowadays? I seldomly use my PC anymore, but I'll go in and uninstall QT now... but what to replace it with? I've heard of Switch Player which looks to do the job. Anyone recommend anything else?
  • Reply 12 of 12
    I haven't used QuickTime in ages, so after checking to see if it was even on my PC, I uninstalled it thinking no big deal. A couple of days later I tried opening an animated gif in Photoshop, and received a message that Photoshop can't open animated gifs unless my computer has QuickTime installed. Great... Apparently (hopefully) more recent versions of Photoshop can do it without Quicktime, so I guess I need to either reinstall QT or find a new version of Photoshop. What a pain. And I just read a message saying Sony Soundforge 10 (which I use) also relies on Quicktime to open certain audio files. Another pain. Very annoying.
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