Apple patches 58 Safari bugs to deflect drive-by attacks

Safari 5.1, the browser bundled with Lion, also makes its way to Snow Leopard

Apple today updated Safari to version 5.1, patching 58 security vulnerabilities and adding several new features, including sandboxing on Mac OS X 10.7.

Safari 5.1 is the browser bundled with Lion, the operating system Apple released earlier today, but it will also run on Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard. A separate Safari update to version 5.0.6 was also issued today for users running Mac OS X 10.5, or Leopard.

The update patched a total of 58 flaws in Safari, 14 of them specific to the Windows edition, one that affected only the Mac version, and 44 that impact both platforms. Forty-seven of the 58 were accompanied by Apple's "arbitrary code execution" phrasing, indicating that the company considered them critical.

Unlike rival Microsoft, Apple does not tag vulnerabilities with threat-level labels.

Safari 5.1 runs on Snow Leopard, but only some features -- like Reading List -- 

are available. The new browser runs best on Lion.

 

Safari was last patched in April when Apple fixed two flaws. The month before that, however, Apple addressed 62 vulnerabilities in a massive security update.        More