Apple has released 11 security patches fixing 8 bugs in Leopard, its latest operating system, and 3 in the Tiger version, Mac OS X 10.4.

Also, Leopard was upgraded to version 10.5.2, which fixes other dozens of problems. The patches include fixes of serious security flaws found in Safari, Mail, Launch Services, the Mac OS Directory Services, Open Directory and Parental Controls.

"When set to manage Web content, Parental Controls will inadvertently contact www.apple.com when a Web site is unblocked," Apple explained in the patch's note. "This allows a remote user to detect the machines running Parental Controls. This update addresses the issue by removing the outgoing network traffic when a Web site is unblocked."

Also in Leopard, Apple has introduced new versions of its graphics drivers and shipped the latest update to Web Objects, version number 5.4.

Apple finally fixed one of the few remaining unpatched vulnerabilities in its Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", first reported in August 2006 by researcher Kevin Finesterre. Apple also fixed flaws in several open source programs included in its operating system, including the print services application Samba and the X11 windowing framework.

In mid-December, Apple released an important batch of patches for its Tiger and Leopard. The focus of those updates was the Web, with Adobe Shockwave and Flash plug-ins sitting on top of the list, along with Web-oriented code like Perl, Python, and Ruby.