MySpace to Apple: Fix QuickTime fast

MySpace.com wants Apple to update its QuickTime media player software so it can't be used in attacks on the social-networking site.

The request comes after a worm in the form of a rigged QuickTime movie crawled onto MySpace.com over the weekend, changing people's MySpace profiles. The worm spread because of QuickTime's support for JavaScript code, experts have said.

Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer at MySpace, said in an email statement: "When we learned about an issue that exploits a feature in QuickTime and unfortunately targets MySpace users, we immediately contacted Apple to engineer a fix."

When viewed by a MySpace user in Internet Explorer or Firefox, the specially crafted QuickTime video added itself to the user's MySpace page and replaced the links on the user's profile with links to phishing websites. The malicious software, dubbed Quickspace by F-Secure, infected a large but unspecified number of MySpace users, according to the Finnish security company.

Apple is working on a QuickTime fix but currently has a temporary solution available, according to a company spokeswoman.

She said: "Recently we learned about an issue that exploits a feature in QuickTime used to target MySpace users. We have devised a way to disable this QuickTime feature for those who use Internet Explorer. We are working on a broader solution for all other users as well."

Apple said it has provided MySpace with the temporary fix. The computer company said it would be up to the social-networking site to offer it to users. MySpace has not responded to an inquiry as to when the temporary solution would be available to users.

While waiting for Apple to release a final fix, MySpace has blocked the web links that attempt to exploit the issue and is scrubbing them from profiles on the MySpace site, Nigam said. MySpace has also reported the incident to law enforcement, he added.

Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com