Apple Computer on Tuesday released 20 patches for its OS X operating system designed to fix flaws that could catch users off-guard.

The vulnerabilities apply to Mac OS X v10.3.9 and Mac OS X Server 10.3.9, according to Apple's advisory. The announcement comes roughly a month after Apple issued nearly a dozen patches for its Mac OS.

The advisory also falls just days after Apple's much ballyhooed release of the latest version of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.4, widely known as Tiger. The flaws were already addressed in Tiger, so the patches apply only to the previous version, known as Panther.

Security company Secunia on Wednesday rated Apple's OS X flaws as "highly critical." Among the flaws of greatest concern is a vulnerability in the OS X AppKit that relates to the handling of TIFF graphics files.

"If people view a malicious TIFF, it could result in running arbitrary code," said Thomas Kristensen, chief technology officer for Secunia. "TIFF is usually viewed as safe form to view things, so this makes it more critical."

Another issue of concern is an AppleScript flaw. If users visit a Web site and accept AppleScript from that site, they could find it executing different code than they had expected, Kristensen added.

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