Apple’s popular program QuickTime is now perceived as a threat by the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security suspects it can become a tool to hack a Windows computer. The DHS is urging people to uninstall it as soon as possible. Apple is also helping people uninstall it by not updating it and giving instructions on how to uninstall it.
Alert Sent by the Federal government
As soon as the DHS realized that the program is a potential threat to every US citizen, it sent an alert telling all Windows customers to uninstall the program. The unsupported software is said to be vulnerable to viruses and hacks according to the DHS officials. The alert stated that the only solution to this major threat was to uninstall the program quickly.
Apple’s Role
Apple is not providing support for the software anymore and it has also decided not to add any security updates for the software. The company made these decisions despite knowing that the software has two vulnerable points that may allow hackers into people’s computers.
The last update related to the software came in late January this year. The company has also been fixing software bugs regularly for a few years. Apple’s last QuickTime release for windows was in 2005, and since then, the company seems to be pulling off from the responsibility of fixing the software or enhancing it for windows users.
It is an interesting fact that although DHS and Apple are encouraging Windows users to uninstall the software, it is still available for download. For people who need assistance in uninstalling the software, Apple has dedicated a whole page filled with the instructions on its website.
QuickTime and Mac
Apple is not pulling off the software for Mac Users. In fact, apple delivered a sizeable QuickTime upgrade for Mac OS X in the year 2009 and its support and security updates are still active.
Getting Support
The federal government or DHS’s alert to remove the software is not the only request to the Windows users. A security company by the name of TrendMicro has also blogged that QuickTime is very vulnerable to cyber attacks. The security company made it clear that there have been no such attacks so far, but it would be wise to remove the software from Windows anyway.
