US Homeland Security asks Windows PC users to uninstall Apple’s Quicktime video player
18 Apr 2016
The Department of Homeland Security and a top cyber security firm have advised Windows PC users to uninstall Apple's Quicktime video player after the discovery of two new bugs in the software.
In a blog post published on Thursday, security firm Trend Micro said that Apple was not issuing security updates for Quicktime for Windows any longer, despite the presence of the bugs. According to Trend Micro, the bugs could be used to launch attacks on PCs if users visited a compromised web page or opened a tainted file.
Trend Micro said, it was not aware of any instances of the bugs being exploited by hackers, but the warning did not apply to Quicktime on Mac operating systems.
A similar alert was put out by DHS's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) on Thursday warning that Windows PC users were vulnerable to viruses and other threats due to flaws in security.
"The only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows," US-CERT's alert said.
