Today’s topics include Apple patching critical iOS and macOS flaws, and Microsoft releasing a roadmap for Visual Studio 2019 improvements.
Apple on Oct. 30 released a series of critical security updates to its macOS, iOS and watchOS operating systems that fix high-impact flaws.
Such flaws include remote code execution issues that could enable attackers to take over unpatched devices.
Code security vendor Semmle reported six of the remote code execution issues that were found in the XNU operating system kernel that is at the core of Apple’s devices. According to Semmle, “The vulnerabilities are in XNU’s networking code and its client-side NFS implementation. [They] may allow malicious attackers on the same network to take control of any vulnerable Apple device. A remote attacker could run arbitrary code, extract data, crash the devices, or reset them to factory settings.”
Microsoft has a number of important improvements slated for its Visual Studio 2019 for Mac whenever it is released, and the company has laid out a detailed roadmap to advise users of what is to come.
According to Unni Ravindranathan, principal program manager and lead of the Visual Studio for Mac program management team, “Improving the typing performance and reliability is [Microsoft’s] single biggest focus area for Visual Studio 2019 for Mac. We plan to replace most of the internals of the Visual Studio for Mac editor with those from Visual Studio. Combined with the work to improve our integration of various language services, our aspiration is to bring similar levels of editor productivity from Visual Studio to Visual Studio for Mac.”
At the same time, Microsoft will work to address a top request from users to add Right-To-Left support to the application’s built-in editor to enable right-to-left languages to display text correctly on a screen.