It is not very often that you hear about security vulnerabilities that affect the Macintosh operating system, in fact the ‘security’ of running OS X is proudly flaunted by Apple, and for the most part it makes working in the OS X environment a pretty worry free experience. However as Apple’s market share increases and the Mac becomes a more prominent operating system it is only reasonable to assume that it may become more of a target for those bad guys out in cyber world who are writing all these nasty viruses and malicious software.

It was while listening to one of my favourite podcasts – MacBreak Weekly (can be found at twit.tv), that I came to hear about this vulnerability which all revolves around Java. Now for us lowly computer users Java is not something that we actively use, its an architecture or software which lives on your computer and allows you to access all that cool content on the internet. If you have ever played online games, used web based chat then you have inadvertently used Java.

The issue of concern for people running a Mac is that there is a flaw within Java, this flaw basically allows a remote person or malicious tool to gain access to your computers code (all the bits and bytes that run behind the glossy dock and shiny windows that we use everyday). And the more worrying thing is that if you were to come across a site that did take advantage of this vulnerability, it would get into your computer all without your knowledge.

So at this time the recommended fix for this to protect yourself from any potential exploits is to turn off Java in your internet browsers settings/preferences area. The other good thing at this point in time is that there are no known web sites or Java ‘applets’ that actually take advantage of this flaw, however having said this once the bad guys are aware there is a problem it wouldn’t take someone long to put a script together.

What bugs me more about this is that Apple have known about this flaw in Java for 5 months now, yet just a few days ago a Software Update was released and guess what…flaw not fixed…I would’ve thought that with five months up their sleeves that would’ve been plenty of time to get a fix underway.

Moral of this story, don’t be complacent on the internet Mac users. We all get a little lax when it comes to security as we usually take for granted that there are no real risks out there in the wild that is the internet. Hopefully now that this flaw has been made public by the security company Intego Security (the ones that came across it) it will prompt Apple to push out an update so we can once again be happy knowing that we are safe to browse the internet once again.