Late Wednesday, Apple released version 3.1.1 of its Safari web browser. The new version, which weighs in at just under a 40 megabyte download, provides improvements to stability, compatibility and security.

The first issue resolved addresses a heap buffer overflow that could occur in the program's WebKit framework for handling JavaScript regular expressions.

The second issue resolved focused on WebKit's handling of URLs containing a colon character in the host name. By exploiting that vulnerability, a hacker could use a maliciously crafted URL to lead a cross-site scripting attack, Apple said.

Two additional issues resolved repaired errors for the Windows version of the browser. One of those issues made it possible for a maliciously crafted website to control the contents of a user's address bar, while the other made it possible for maliciously crafted website to cause arbitrary code execution or the Safari application to unexpectedly quit. 


Like similar system and program updates, users can locate and install the update via Mac OS X's Software Update feature.

Safari 3.1.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run and requires a reboot after installation.

If you've tried the newest version and noticed any changes whatsoever, please let us know over in the comments or forums.