April 15, 2016 By Larry Loeb 2 min read

Trend Micro issued a warning for all Windows users of QuickTime urging them to uninstall the Apple software. Along with this warning, it described two zero-day vulnerabilities in the software that will go unpatched.

A third party announcing what Apple’s intentions are for a major hunk of the company’s software is highly unusual. As of this writing, there has been no official word from Apple concerning this. But a clue can be gleaned from the instructions for uninstalling QuickTime for Windows.

“Most recent media-related programs for Windows — including iTunes 10.5 or later — no longer use QuickTime to play modern media formats,” Apple wrote. “These programs either play the media directly or use the media support built into Windows.” It seems that Apple feels QuickTime is no longer needed, and as a result, it won’t continue to support or update the application.

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in QuickTime for Windows

But there’s more: Trend Micro also announced newly discovered zero-day vulnerabilities in the media player. Zero-Day Initiative detailed the two issues, ZDI-16-241 and ZDI-16-242, affecting QuickTime for Windows, and Trend Micro claimed that its own products have been protecting against these exploits since November 2015.

So why go public now? “These advisories are being released in accordance with the Zero Day Initiative’s Disclosure Policy for when a vendor does not issue a security patch for a disclosed vulnerability,” the security firm stated on its blog. “And because Apple is no longer providing security updates for QuickTime on Windows, these vulnerabilities are never going to be patched.”

Trend Micro said it is “not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently.” Still, it clarified that the only way to ensure security is to uninstall the program before cybercriminals find a way to exploit the permanent vulnerabilities.

QuickTime for Windows follows other software such as Microsoft Windows XP and Oracle Java 6, which are no longer being updated to fix vulnerabilities. That makes them subject to ever-increasing risk as more and more unpatched vulnerabilities are found and cybercriminals attempt to exploit them.

CERT Weighs In

The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) amplified the warning about the vulnerability in its own alert. The organization said the impact is potentially damaging to users and their organizations.

“Computer systems running unsupported software are exposed to elevated cybersecurity dangers, such as increased risks of malicious attacks or electronic data loss,” US-CERT said. “Exploitation of QuickTime for Windows vulnerabilities could allow remote attackers to take control of affected systems.”

The only thing that users can responsibly do is uninstall QuickTime for Windows — immediately.

More from

What we can learn from the best collegiate cyber defenders

3 min read - This year marked the 19th season of the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC). For those unfamiliar, CCDC is a competition that puts student teams in charge of managing IT for a fictitious company as the network is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This year the challenge involved a common scenario: a merger. Ten finalist teams were tasked with managing IT infrastructure during this migrational period and, as an added bonus, the networks were simultaneously attacked by a group of red…

A spotlight on Akira ransomware from X-Force Incident Response and Threat Intelligence

7 min read - This article was made possible thanks to contributions from Aaron Gdanski.IBM X-Force Incident Response and Threat Intelligence teams have investigated several Akira ransomware attacks since this threat actor group emerged in March 2023. This blog will share X-Force’s unique perspective on Akira gained while observing the threat actors behind this ransomware, including commands used to deploy the ransomware, active exploitation of CVE-2023-20269 and analysis of the ransomware binary.The Akira ransomware group has gained notoriety in the current cybersecurity landscape, underscored…

New proposed federal data privacy law suggests big changes

3 min read - After years of work and unsuccessful attempts at legislation, a draft of a federal data privacy law was recently released. The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce released the American Privacy Rights Act on April 7, 2024. Several issues stood in the way of passing legislation in the past, such as whether states could issue tougher rules and if individuals could sue companies for privacy violations. With the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024, the U.S. government established…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today