Apple Inc. has released yesterday the QuickTime 7.3 update, which fixes quite an important number of serious security flows in the media player’s software. Six of the seven bugs that this patch fixes could have allowed a hacker to run unauthorized software on the users’ personal computers. The users could have been tricked to view a maliciously crafted movie or image file and this way the hackers could have gained access to their computers.

The seventh bug that this update fixes has lied in the media player for Java. Apple Inc. has made public the fact that through this flaw the attackers could have gained access to sensitive information and could have even run Java applets with elevated privileges.

The QuickTime security update that has been released yesterday has been developed for the latest versions of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, as well as for Microsoft’s Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems.

According to nCircle Network Security’s director of security operations, Andrew Storms, none of these seven bugs had been previously disclosed to the public.

However, this is the fifth security update that Apple Inc. has released for its QuickTime media player this year. The company has credited security researchers from companies such as Adobe, 3Com or Verisign, who have reported the bugs Apple has fixed through this latest patch.