Apple pushes out first ever automated OS X security update to fix critical vulnerability

Never in the platform's history has an emergency fix been needed - until now

Apple pushed out the company's first ever automated security update for OS X late yesterday to defend against newly-identified remote hacking exploits.

The vulnerability is due to a component of the OS X platform called the network time protocol (NTP), which synchronises clocks on the computer hardware.

The security issue was discovered by Google researchers, who revealed that it could allow a remote hacker to "send a carefully crafted packet that can overflow a stack buffer and allow malicious code to be executed".

The Department of Homeland Security and Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute made the software glitches public on Friday, explaining how several other companies and their hardware may be vulnerable.

NTP is a much-used internet time-keeping protocol, and many Unix-based systems are also potentially under threat from an NTP hijack.

But this is the first time in the Mac's software update history that Apple has had to release an unscheduled update to fix a vulnerability. Apple introduced an automatic update-pushing system in 2012, but never had cause to use it until now.

Apple spokesman Bill Evans described the update as "seamless", adding that it "doesn't even require a restart".