October 20, 2007 - Urgent Security Update for the Real Player
October 20, 2007
Hackers are actively exploiting a “zero-day hole” in RealNetworks’ RealPlayer media player, which is installed on tens of millions of Windows computers worldwide, and which is required to view Real English videos. Go to
http://service.real.com/realplayer/security/191007_player/en/
On this page, you will note that there are two different patches, according to the version of the player installed on your computer - one for RealPlayer 10.5 and RealPlayer 11 beta, and another for RealOne Player, RealOne Player v2 and RealPlayer 10.
If you don’t know which version of the Real Player you have installed, you can open your Real Player, and click on “Help”, then click on “About Real Player” to see the version you are running. If your Real Player is in compact mode like mine, you will first have two click on the two >> (2 arrows at the top) to expand, and then you will see “Help”, and finally “About Real Player” at the bottom.
After the patch is applied, you will see no confirmation message telling you that the update has been successful. The patch is, nevertheless, and apparently, effective if you see no error messages during or after the brief update process. I don’t understand why this big company doesn’t do a better job with security related matters.
Additional general info at ZDNet Blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=599
Entry Filed under: Security. .
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1.
xerxes33 | October 20, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Why do you make the real english video clips for the Real Player anyway? - There are lots of other players out here - just redo your videos in another format.
2.
realenglish | October 20, 2007 at 2:35 pm
In any case, I assume you applied the patch? That’s obviously the most important item in this category!
To answer your question, I decided on the Real Player a few years ago as the primary video format for Real English Online since it was really the most efficient codec in terms of file size vs. quality. IOW, the downloads were fast, and the quality pretty good. I did lots of experiments with Quicktime and Windows Media before deciding on RealMedia.
I prefer the way Quicktime player looks and feels, but the file sizes are almost twice those of Real Media for the same picture and sound quality. I suppose that is less important these days with everyone subscibed to fast adsl, but it used to be the most important factor.
Windows Media was almost as good as Real Media in terms of file size vs quality, but at that time, the security issues were not in Windows favor! And besides, I didn’t want to turn off Mac users.
Finally, if I re-compress all my raw edits, I would probably go the Flash video route today, since it is a lot less complictated than it used to be, and I haven’t yet heard of any security issues related to Flash video. Any further comments most welcome.