The US government wants PC users to uninstall Quicktime over fears that the software can leave Windows vulnerable to attacks by cyber-criminals.
It's about to time to uninstall Apple's multiplatform, multimedia handling software. According to Belfast Telegraph, security company Trend Micro has found that Apple is terminating its support for the Windows version of Quicktime. This means that PC users will no longer be receiving security updates from Apple and because of that, hackers may find a way to get inside a Windows PC through the said software.
Moving on, the news website reports that the US Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) supports Trend Micro's lead to urge PC users to uninstall Apple's software immediately. Without security updates to this software, a Windows PC may become open to serious attacks from hackers including but not limited to viruses and malware, data loss or information theft. In extreme cases, hackers might be able to find a way to gain control over the affected computer.
Belfast Telegraph adds that Apple has not yet issued any public statement or any similar warning regarding this matter. So far, Apple has only updated its user's guide on how to uninstall Quick Time 7 on windows as of March 9, 2016. On the other hand, Trend Micro's warning does not extend to Mac Users.
So far Trend Micro has not yet found evidence of attacks made through this multimedia-handling software developed by Apple. According to their blog site, what they have discovered instead are two vulnerabilities in Quicktime that will never be patched because Apple is depreciating its support for Windows users. Eventually, hackers might find a way to exploit these vulnerabilities in the future so the only way to avoid it is to uninstall the software.
It is better to heed Trend Micro and US-CERT's advice to uninstall Quicktime and use a multimedia handling platform developed specially for Windows systems to be safe from any future attacks from Cyber-criminals.
