Apple stops patching QuickTime for Windows despite 2 active vulnerabilities

Security firm urges Windows users to uninstall media player.

by Dan Goodin -

Ars Technica | Apr 14, 2016 4:30pm PDT

If your Windows computer is running Apple's QuickTime media player, now
would be a good time to uninstall it.

The Windows app hasn't received an update since January, and security
researchers from Trend Micro said it won't receive any security fixes in
the future. In a blog post published Thursday, the researchers went on to
say they know of at least two reliable QuickTime vulnerabilities that
threaten Windows users who still have the program installed.

"We re not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities
currently," they wrote. "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."

The retirement of QuickTime for Windows has been in the planning stages for
at least a few months, and possibly much longer. Apple has never
supported QuickTime for Windows 8 or 10, although some users found ways
to work around the restriction. What's more, the January update removed
the browser plugin for QuickTime, making it impossible for video on
websites to seamlessly play in a user's browser. As a result, there's
little chance QuickTime vulnerabilities could be harnessed into a
drive-by download exploit. Instead, exploits would have to rely on social
engineering that convinces a user to download a video and open it in
QuickTime.

Even so, Apple officials should have shown the courtesy to tell Windows
users QuickTime was no longer receiving security updates, rather than
leaving it to Trend Micro. At least Apple's website provides removal
instructions here. A fun fact from the Microsoft antitrust trial in 1998:
A year earlier, during some of Apple's darkest moments as a viable
company, a Microsoft official allegedly attempted to force it to abandon
QuickTime so Microsoft could have the media playback market to itself.
"'Are you asking us to knife the baby?'" then Apple senior VP Avadis
Tevanian Jr said during dramatic testimony, quoting a fellow Apple
executive who attended the meeting. "'Yes, we want you to knife the
baby.'" Teveanian continued, in an alleged paraphrase of Microsoft
official Christopher Phillips. "It was very clear."

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Wonder why Apple has abandoned both Safari and QuickTime for Windows?
Last version of Safari was in 2012 and now QuickTime gone. Is this a
rift between Apple and Microsoft?

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Adam G.

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On 2016-04-18 7:58 PM, Adam Glazener -> Matt Munson wrote:

Wonder why Apple has abandoned both Safari and QuickTime for Windows?
Last version of Safari was in 2012 and now QuickTime gone. Is this a
rift between Apple and Microsoft?

Note that Adobe is warning that uninstalling Quicktime will affect its online Creative Cloud service:

http://www.pcmag.com/news/343750/running-quicktime-on-windows-uninstall-now

"We know how common this format is in many worfklows, and we continue to work hard to improve this situation, but have no estimated timeframe for native decode currently," Adobe's Madison Murphy wrote in a blog post. "We intend to increase our efforts to remove these incompatibilities, and provide our customers with a complete native pipeline. We will provide more information on this as we progress."

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