The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) recently issued an Alert in which it announced that Apple has no further plans to provide security updates for QuickTime for Windows with a recommendation to remove it. The Alert follows an earlier report from Trend Micro, the anti-virus and anti-malware vendor, and comes as two new vulnerabilities have been discovered that could affect QuickTime for Windows users.
Computers running QuickTime for Windows will continue to work after support ends. However, using unsupported software may increase the risks from viruses and other security threats. Potential consequences include loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, as well as damage to system resources or business assets.
There haven't been any reports of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently. But the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now and going forward is to uninstall it.
CERT's official position is as follows:
The only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows. Users can find instructions for uninstalling QuickTime for Windows on the Apple Uninstall QuickTime page.
You can review CERT's Alert page here.
Trend Micro has labeled this an "Urgent Call to Action" saying that the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now is to uninstall it. You can review Trend Micro's page here.
You can find information on how to uninstall Apple QuickTime for Windows from the Apple website here.
On a related note, if you'd like to see how your security precautions stack up, please download our free Cyber Security Report Card and evaluate how you're doing.