14 DAY TRIAL // RealNetworks has recently announced a security patch for digital multimedia players that should arrest the occurrence of the buffer overflow attacks, which allowed hackers to run their own code on the targeted systems.
This flaw has been rated by the Secunia security comaony as extremely critical and affects the latest versions of the player, both for Windows and Mac. RealNetworks has also announced that some of the Linux versions, not the recent ones though, are also vulnerable to this flaw.
Until now, RealNetworks has announced that it hasn't received any reports from users that complained about such an attack. However, applying this patch is recommended by Secunia, but also by RealNetworks, the producer outlining that every security breach is taken into consideration and it is quickly solved.
The buffer overflow type attacks allow an attacker to flood a certain program with a large quantity of information, and as a result, they are able to run their own malicious codes. These attacks are common by now, and several applications seem to suffer from these flaws.
Recently, RealNetworks has partnered with Nokia, and as a result, the Finnish producer will include RealAudio, RealVideo and Helix DNA RealPlayer into a large number of terminals.