When is a Mac hack not a mac hack?

Answer: When it affects windows too. Apparently the hack to the MacBook at last week’s CanSecWest security conference exploits a flaw in Apple's Quicktime.

So, the take away here is two fold: (1) Mac OS X was not hacked at the conference (a minor quibble but technically true) and (2) this may be a much bigger deal than I initially thought since the installed base for Quicktime is many times larger than the installed base for Mac OS X (the reason? If you have iTunes on your Mac or PC, then you have Quicktime installed).

I suspect we will see a patch for Quicktime very soon from Apple.