QuickTime vulnerability for Windows users

The U.S. government and Apple have recommended that all Windows PC users uninstall and remove Apple’s QuickTime video player after two new bugs have been discovered within the software.

Trend Micro Inc. was the security software company that discovered the two bugs. They said the two critical vulnerabilities were found in a version of QuickTime media player for Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

This could result in attacks on Windows computers if users visit malicious websites or open contaminated files.

This vulnerability in the software is only for Windows users so won’t affect Apple’s Mac computers.

Apple has echoed this advice to uninstall QuickTime from Windows PCs as they will no longer update or support QuickTime 7 for Windows, which means they won’t patch these security holes or fix the bugs.

Apple has stated that this is because it has been a long time since QuickTime has been necessary for iTunes, which changed with the 10.5 version back in October 2011. Meaning there is no real reason for the app to be installed on your PC anymore since it has been replaced by technologies like HTML 5.

For details on how to remove QuickTime from your computer, click here.

It is not known whether there are any cases where these bugs have been exploited by attackers but as it is a security threat and Apple are no longer supporting or updating the software, we would strongly recommend you remove QuickTime from your computer as soon as possible.