New privilege escalation bug hits Mac OS X

Released without prior notification, the bug allows attackers to run programs as though they are the administrator of the computer

Apple has been hit by a second unpatched "privilege escalation" bug in as many months, allowing an attacker to take complete control of a computer by abusing a flaw in the operating system's memory handling.

The bug, which is similar to the DYLD vulnerability revealed in late July, affects versions of Mac OS X from 10.9.5 through to the recently released 10.10.5. It does not affect the beta versions of the next version of Mac OS X, called El Capitan, which is due out this autumn. As a privilege escalation bug, it opens up the possibility of malware bypassing security measures that are put in place to limit the abilities of malicious code, which somehow ends up running on a users' computer.