In an advisory published last Thursday, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) - which is part of the US Department of Homeland Security - has recommended that Apple's QuickTime media player should be uninstalled by Windows users from their PCs.

The advisory by US-CERT comes against the backdrop of a Thursday disclosure by Trend Micro's TippingPoint group that Apple has dropped support for QuickTime on Windows. As a result of the move, no future updates or security fixes will be rolled out by Apple for the Windows version of QuickTime multimedia software.

Trend Micro's disclosure that QuickTime for Windows has been deprecated -- or dropped from support -- by Apple was based on a confirmation by the tech giant, in November 2015, that it has no plans to release a security fix for two new vulnerabilities reported by Trend Micro in QuickTime 7 for Windows.

Though Apple has yet posted an official announcement about the apparent deprecation of QuickTime for Windows, US-CERT has said in its advisory that "Computers running QuickTime for Windows will continue to work after support ends," but users may face increased risk of security threats due to unsupported software.

Further adding that "potential negative consequences" of using unsupported QuickTime for Windows could include "loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, as well as damage to system resources or business assets," US-CERT said in the advisory: "The only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows."