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Symantec: Mac OS X Becoming a Malware Target 779
tb3 writes "According to ZDNet 'Security vendor Symantec is warning that Apple's OS X operating system is increasingly becoming a target for hackers and malware authors.' They go on to warn that the only thing that's protected Apple users from exploits so far has been the small number of Macs on the net. Now that people are buying Apple products for 'style over function,' according to one analyst, Apple computer has become a target for new attacks. More coverage on Australian IT and Silicon.com. I guess sales of Norton Anti-Virus for Mac needed a boost." Symantec may well be right about this, but note that they also have the world's biggest vested interest in making Mac owners nervous enough to buy their anti-virus products.
Style over function? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that so wrong?
Infidel! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. Now, back to the bash prompt with you, heathen, and may the glistening tentacles of Aqua and Luna never intrude upon your conscience again!
(I kid, I kid. Luna doesn't glisten.)
Re:Infidel! (Score:3, Interesting)
The default shell is Bash
The terminal app's fonts and antialiasing is really nice.
Re:Infidel! (Score:5, Informative)
uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Mmmm... tentacles. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Infidel! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Style over function? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Style over function? (Score:3, Insightful)
The OS X platform is built on solid unix programing. The eye candy is just the sparkly coating. Properly implemented OS X can be quite secure. Although, you might be able to say the same thing about any modern os(yes even windows.)
Yes it is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes it is... (Score:3, Funny)
Ive always wanted to make some software named something like "Usable Network Toolkit" and have it added to KDE - just to see if they persist with the K prefix
Re:Yes it is... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yes it is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at names such as Krusader doesn't help me to know what the application does. The same goes for kdissert, kdar, Krita, Kate, KLibido, knoda, Konstruct, KlamAV, etc... basically what I'm getting at is that the prepended K seems to make developers try to come up with Kreative names for their applications rather than informative ones.
About the only applications that I am familiar with that have descriptive names are KMyFirewall and KText. I'm sure that there are plenty of others with descriptive names, but the vast majority of Kapplications seem to be named simply for the K.
Re:Style over function? (Score:3, Insightful)
It does not have to, but inevitably it will for some people.
Familiar, eh? it's the typical user buying a machine from Fry's, CompUSA and, now, Apple stores. Meaning Apple is also netting clueless users with its 'switch' campaign. Simply because they were largely confined to Windows so far won't magically change their ways
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean *besides* the buffer overflows found in quicktime?
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Interesting)
Try this experiment: install OS X and connect to the Internet. Leave it connected for a week. Now install Windows and connect to the Internet. Leave it connected for 30 minutes. Which one will be hacked? My point is that Windows needs special steps to be _protected_; Mac OS X requires special hacking and other circumstances to become _vulnerable_. The QuickTime ruse you refer to no doubt requires some social engineering to make work... that's just a guess on my part. Am I right?
Furthermore, the buffer overflows in quicktime do not afford an attacker root priviledges, do they? And when vulnerabilities are found, Apple, unlike Microsoft, so far anyway, has a great record of fixing them immediately. Apple has a great record on security in OS X. You are not going to see a flood of crippling, disabling OS X attacks like you see every couple of months with Windows viruses that take out our whole email system at work from time to time. Hacking an OS X box is HARD.
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Informative)
Neither [techweb.com] (except if you're dumb enough to not have installed Windows XP SP2)
My point is that Windows needs special steps to be _protected_;
Actually, in SP2 it doesn't. The XP firewall is turned on by default in XP2. In SP1, all you needed to do was turn on the firewall for a connection in the Network Connections control panel.
Now as far as local security goes, I agree with you; there are some nasty local security exploits. Microsoft is to blame for much of the security issues, but also a major part of the problem is third-party developers! It would help if application developers would realize that Windows is a multi-user system and actually follow Microsoft's reference guides for how to program in this environment instead of forcing the user to be an Administrator to actually use their program. Windows has been multi-user for years, and application developers still haven't caught up. Why do I have to be an Administrator to run a game? Bad programming, that's why! Not even Norton AV gets this right (scheduled scans do not run for non-administrators and a non-administrators are told that Live Update is off even if it is actually turned on). The only program that I've see actually try to do something about this is Nero, which has a program to set up a group to enable burning by non-administrator accounts, but even this is a special download that is not part of the regular install. This needs to change; developers need to start using the Windows multi-user environment correctly.
In summary, Microsoft provided the ability to make the system more secure using non-privileged accounts and groups like every other major OS, but application developers are not taking advantage of it. I always run as a non-privileged user, and I am getting sick of applications that have no reason to need administrator privileges not running correctly.
Well that's cool if you've installed SP2 already (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Style over function? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Style over function? (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that Microsoft, if they were serious about security, could have fixed that with the release of Windows XP. For some reason, most application publishers want the 'designed for Windows XP' sticker, logo or whatever. To get this, they're supposed to follow the guidelines of the program setup by Mic
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they have advertized themselves as such for years.
Tell me this, though.
How do you build a windows service (that's a daemon for you unix folks but it needs to be specifically built and installed to work properly), have it run as an unprivileged user (i.e. *not* the system account) and have it start when the system boots *without* the user it is supposed to run as logging in at the console?
If it's possible, then it is *very* fucking new.
Re:Style over function? (Score:4, Informative)
If it's possible, then it is *very* fucking new.
It's been there since Windows NT, although the configuration was different in NT.
Re:Style over function? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Style over function? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good assessment. I'd elaborate by adding that the
Let's say you're writing a program. You write it under Win95. Time goes on, Win98 comes out, then WinME, and finally XP. Now, with XP, you can do multi-user stuff... but by now you have a codebase you don't want to have to go back and rewrite all of. Or even with more recent programs, people complain that they want it to run on Win95, or 98, because they don't want to upgrade to XP.
It's really a pain to write something to do everything properly NT-ish/XP-ish multi-user
Whether or not Mac OS X is inherently 'better,' they picked up a bit of a benefit by the 'throw out the old system and start over with OS X' tactic. By basically creating an entirely different operating system, people really had to redesign their apps for it. Huge investment in time and energy... but as long as they're rewriting their apps anyway, they can rewrite them properly for a multi-user environment.
(Disclaimer: While I write Windows software for a living, Mac OS X software for a hobby, and use both, the Mac is my machine of choice for casual browsing and productivity.)
Re:Style over function? (Score:4, Insightful)
A system may become infected 'automatically' when an external attack exploits a hole in the box's current configuration.
I got hit with a script-kiddy's sendmail exploit in an underpatched Linux box back in '97. Yes, it was my fault for not patching the system correctly. However, a properly locked down system, one with all necessary patches installed, is going to be *fairly* impervious to this type of attack.
Mac OS X gets kudos for being secure out of the box (though Apple should enable firewall by default). Linux has generally been there for a while now. Windows is slowly getting there.
Part 2 of avoiding 'automatic' exploits is being able to keep a system up to date. This is important and requires some user intervention on *all* OS's. The user *must* allow the OS to keep itself up to date. If not, newly-found holes will be left unplugged and potentially exploited in the future.
<aside> How many of these holes will be found depends on the underlying design of the OS. The worse its initial design with respect to security the more holes will be found. In its current state, Linux and OS X are more *inherently* secure than Windows. This is akin to Java being more secure than Active X -- Java was designed with security in mind, and very few security vulnerabilities were ever found. Active X has a security model of a sieve, and its terrible security history speaks for itself. </aside>
The second way a system can become infected is via user intervention. This is commonly called 'Social Engineering' and goes something like this: "Hey user, install this cool piece of software for neat feature X, Y, Z". So user installs the package, which includes malware, adware, opens a port from inside the system and communicates with it's mothership, etc. I don't see whey the Mac is inherently more secure to this type of an attack. In my one week's using a new Mini, I think this kind of an attack can succeed -- the user would even type the admin password to install the bad piece of software. Now, the malware on OS X & Linux wouldn't be able to overwrite critical system files (wouldn't have filesystem permissions) as it would on XP, but it could still cause enough havoc.
What worries me more is that Mac users, thinking that they're impervious to any attacks, wouldn't think twice about installing some random software on their invulnerable mac. They're not paranoid enough, and some paranoia is not a bad thing. :)
All in all, I welcome additional users into the Mac camp, even if it brings more risk with it.
Re:Style over function? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry kids, but don't you think that there's a possibility that an OS which is designed to be easy to use (ie for the computer illiterate) AND is growing in popularity is going to be a target for malware/viruses?
Jesus Fucking Christ.
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once there are some actual exploits in the wild that we can examine and dissect, my conclusion will remain.
Oh, wait, what's this? There aren't any? Ah. OK then.
Re:Style over function? (Score:4, Funny)
&c.
Re:Style over function? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More scared people -- more sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, you think the average Apple user is less savvy than a PC user? Most of the graphics artists I know are SIGNIFICANTLY more knowledgable than most PC users...
Blake
Re:More scared people -- more sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More scared people -- more sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More scared people -- more sales (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed true! Unlike Windows, Mac Apps do NOT require admin privs in order to work correctly. If a user downloads a file that tries to execute, a window will come up warning the user and recommending to not allow this execution. If a malware wants to install something, the Mac asks for an admin password, which if the user doesn't know it or give it if he/she does know it, cannot get any further. There are millions of Mac users already, and I know of no malware th
Re:More scared people -- more sales (Score:5, Funny)
I believe general stereotypes are bad but do have an example that fits this.
I work for the local school district as a computer tech. Recently, the art department bought a Powerbook for every art teacher. I got a call last week from an art teacher and said she was having problems installing a program. I told the user I would help her install it.
I get to the computer and ask her where the software is. She said she got it in an email from a friend. The subject was "Spring screensavers for you."
Of course the attachment was a zipped
I guess my point here is what if that trojan was coded for a Mac? A multiuser system is pointless if the user knows the admin/root password. (Our users do not have admin access.) In my experience, entering a password is more of an annoyance than a security measure for many users.
Ok, now I'm going off to another story but it is worth reading. A person of importance in the district recently got a new computer with XP Pro. She had previously had a Windows 98 PC and was in a habit to cancel past the Microsoft login. I don't blame her. There is not security there. Her new computer is shared between two people so I made an account for each of them like I do on every new computer. This person did not like the idea of having to type her password in just to get into her computer.
On Friday at 3:45 (work ends at 4:00) I got a call from the user demanding that the password be taken off the computer. She just wanted to turn on her computer and be at the desktop.
I did as she asked but also took the liberty to change her important documents to hidden. I was hoping I would get a call today. I did.
After getting a desperate voicemail for the user, I slowly made my way to her office. There she asked me what had happened to her documents. I played stupid and asked what documents. She said all of her important files were in the My Documents folder on Friday and there are not there anymore. I then came up with some bs about how I would need to recover them because someone must have been using the computer over the weekend and must have deleted them by accident. (Strangely enough there were children in that room over the weekend. Perfect scapegoats.)
I waited for about ten minutes and when she left the room I removed the hidden property from the documents. I then said I could enable the password so no one could get into her computer. She was more than willing.
Was my action unethical? Perhaps. Was it funny? I think so. I'm just happy I got my point across with no damage done.
Windows software dying art? (Score:5, Interesting)
As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
We will be transitioning about 8 production Macs to OS X later this year, and I am wondering whether I need to concerned at this point. It doesn't seem like I do.
I also understand the possibility of exploits in some of the open source code used in OS X. I assume you deal with this the same as on any other OSes and patch it when the fix comes out.
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Poorly administered servers can get trashed. If your root password is "r00t", it won't take long for someone to figure it out.
You need to be concerened only insofar as you need to have a network admin (or something to that affect). How do you know when your network is being attacked? How do you know what attacks are being tried? If you aren't analyzing your network thats the worst mistake anyone can make.
That being said, there is this virus, its called "rm -rf *", its really bad.
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, /etc/sudoers seems to allow a user to "sudo passwd root" upon defaul
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:4, Insightful)
As for sudo, its this simple, don't let people log in as admin if you're worried about security. If you are the type that knows how to use sudo, odds are you know enough to keep yourself from fubaring the system anyways, and even if you do, reinstall isn't that hard.
Besides, you're perfectly capable of doing most things you need to from a regular account. The point of admin level access isn't to make the machine 100% secure, its to have cursory security from the users to make sure that they can't easily delete their system folder, or anything of the sort.
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:3, Insightful)
It never was much of a problem, but Symantec are saying that because of increasing numbers of Macs connected to the 'net, there's an increase in sighted Malware/viruses/adware/spyware.
Although you should take the words of a vendor trying to sell you something with a bag of salt, it is inevitable that incidence of external threat to an OS will be proportionate to the market share of that OS.
Perhaps the era of security through obscurity for Apple is draw
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Last I checked, out of the box machines come with SP2, which fixes most such vulnerabilities, and have a firewall enabled by default. In addition, the latest desktop and server versions of Windows come with very few services enabled by default. It's also been a LONG time since any Microsoft email program ran worms without user interaction. And finally, if you take security so seriously, why don't you filter viruses in messages on your mail server, patch your mail clients, install client-side virus scanners, or TRAIN your users?
IE sucks for security, but that doesn't seem to be part of your argument. Please play again later.
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Informative)
As for patching, I patch manually, because of quirks in all the audio software we run, but OS X will patch automatically if you set it up to. you will be manually installing patches for any apps not distributed by apple, but all of Apple's stuff will update automatically.
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Update reguarly/automaticly, and keep an eye on an OS X site or two to stay abreast of things, and you'll be fine.
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Mac OSX has historically had very few problems with viruses or exploits. However it only takes one
Macs are secure but not invulnerable (Score:5, Informative)
If someone can get root on a mac you can install a root kit. But youhave to get root first. It's not good enough just to get user level or even admin user level. You have to get the admin user to enter their password to elevate to root.
The ppc played role too as I have read that until last year there was no widely know compact way to exploit a buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code. I beleive that is now solved and published so one might see these cropping up. :-(
Since the security model is better you dont have problems like active-X waiting to ruin your day, or auto execute on mous-over e-mail subject lines, or registry changes needed to install applications. Or other bonkers stuff.
But despite all the default security, nothing will stop a determined used from trojaning themselves good and hard. And if they are admin and enter their password your rooted. Nothing will withstand unrestricted physical access either. You can at least ward off limited physical access by using the firmware password but this can be overridden by a determined user.
and of course there have been security holes and always will be. SSH, quick time, and even JAVA had had security holes. Fortunately no one has manged to exploit these before apple fixed them and given apples default services-off settings and lack of root access, its going to be harder for these things to spread like wild fire.
on the other hand Macs are very homogenous so once a virus does finally break loose, if it can get in without requiring any services its going to spread quickly.
Re:Macs are secure but not invulnerable (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. In the olden days, there were a handful of Mac (Classic Mac OS) viruses. Some of them were even malicious, though those were extremely rare. The only ones I ever personally saw were benign, and easily eradicated by simply rebuilding the desktop file on the infected floppy.
From 1989 and well into the 90s (possibly even until 1998 when it was discontinued), the most popular Mac antivirus software was Disinfectant, [icsalabs.com] a free utility written and maintained by one guy-- so that should tell you the non-severity of the Mac virus problem even then. The developer threw in the towel when cross-platform Word macro viruses hit the scene and quickly became too numerous to keep up with.
Since the time of Mac OS 8 or 9 until the present, however, I would agree with your sentiment that the only reason to use Mac antivirus software is as a courtesy to Windows users with whom you exchange files.
~Philly
Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like spyware is the problem that is going to be the more immediate concern. Initally, there should be little enough of it that you can just shitlist it, but once the door is open I expect they'll be a flood of it since scammers just never seem to give up.
The real solution for that is just user education. Teach them not to install crap (I know, easier said than done). Make sure they don't think they are invincible just because they are now on a Mac. A distrubing trend I see with many Mac converts is they believe themselves to be invincible to malware/viruses/exploits/etc. Well that mindset will lead to crap getting on the systems when it comes out.
So while I'd keep an eye on the OS-X virus situation, I wouldn't worry about software at this point. Worry more about malware and teaching users to stay away from it.
Re:As an IT person ... www.ARMY.mil uses mac (Score:5, Informative)
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75257&c
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67477&cid=618
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45793&cid=476
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37389&cid=400
And I seem to recall seeing it floating around long before then. If anyone knows of the original, please respond. Also, if the original troll could please fix the numbering? 4 isn't supposed to repeat again after 5 and before 7, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Sounds to me like Symantec's trying to push their (Score:5, Insightful)
Security through obscurity? (Score:4, Interesting)
In teh case of malware? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's different than exploits, which rely on finding bugs in code. If the code has less bugs and/or less services where one could try to find them, it is more secure.
However, there's basically nothing you can do about malware other than make scanners for it and try to educate users. Without some kind of trusted computing, signed application deal, there's no way you can make an OS that only allows users to install safe apps, since there's no way to know what is and isn't safe.
Hell some people don't even care about spyware, they want their dumb little free screensaver or whatever and don't care if it spys on them. You can tell them it's bad and they'll just ignore you.
Call me anal.. (Score:3, Informative)
And no, I use McAfee [mcafeehttp]. And it's not too bad, but then again I am biased as we bundle McAfee with systems.
Re:Call me anal.. (Score:3, Funny)
Portability (Score:5, Funny)
Once they have it for OSX it must be fairly easy to port it to FreeBSD. I guess they might have to add a new category in the ports:
long time listener... first time caller (Score:4, Informative)
Re:long time listener... first time caller (Score:3)
That sounds vaguely illegal, but fun.
The only reason Windows is exploitable... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The only reason Windows has had mass exploits written for it is the sheer number of connected devices that are present on most networks."
It's a reason for sure, but the only reason? I think not!How useful (Score:5, Funny)
Please upgrade to signature file 032105.sgn, your current version only detects 3 viruses, however the new signature file finds and cleans 5 different viruses.
The new version... (Score:3, Funny)
Vested Interest up the Wazoo (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe Symantec is trying to draw attention to generate more business for themselves because there certainly haven't been any viruses released yet on OS X that Symantec provides any real protection for - so I wonder, what information could they be basing their statement on? Secret contacts with the hacker community? Certainly nothing public...
The protection will come from such sexily named files as Security Update 2005-002 and Security Update 2005-003 distributed courtesy of Apple Inc.
Re:Vested Interest up the Wazoo (Score:3, Interesting)
Services are turned off by default... (Score:5, Insightful)
Methinks that Symantec is propagating FUD to drum up sales...
let's see!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
1) fool web browser to download without user notice
2) chmod itself ---x--x--x
3) excute itself!!!
I don't think that is possible at *nix systems
Viruses and Word (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm moving him to Apple's Pages software.
Seems to handle doc files just fine, and no macro issues.
FUD. (Score:5, Informative)
At the current time, there are NO known exploits for MacOS X. NONE.
What a crock of Shit! (Score:5, Informative)
This is NOT A TROLL.
I have seen (and experienced myself) Symantec products CAUSE more problems than they fix (if they are even successful at fixing any) on the Mac platform.
I pity the poor soul who has no experience with Symantec on the Mac and falls for this pathetic ad piece.
Re:What a crock of Shit! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a crock of Shit! (Score:3, Informative)
As for viruses, I got by using the freeware software "Disinfectant" ever since system 7... arguably one of the best virus blocking/removal solutions ever made.
Windows is unique (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite simply, Microsoft's operating systems and applications are unique within the industry -- no, not just the industry, but almost unique in post-1989 history itself -- in the careless way they treat data as code. Nobody else would have deployed ActiveX, or deliberately made executing a mail attachment as easy as clicking on it.
I can believe MacOS (or any other platform) has its share of bugs that can be exploited, but you just can't find anything as dangerous-by-design as Windows. Windows will always (even as its marketshare fades) be a comparatively unsafe platform, relative to what is normal. It's not just about code quality, it's about amazingly dumb ideas, combined with business practices that resulted in a situation where users' happiness is not a significant market force.
And of course, there's the obvious counter-example: where are all the BIND and Apache worms? Talk about "sheer number of devices"!
code and data (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't disagree with you in general, but could you please clarify what you mean about this more specifically? I realise that separating data and code is a big security thing, but I'm not particularly a security enthusiast beyond what I need to know.
As far as I'm aware, any system that supports scripting languages, Linux included (consider the number of scripts in your typical /usr/bin directory that'll be executed as root one day) is treating code as data and data as code. Things that are definitely executables can easily be kept protected in memory by an operating system, but not everything's obviously an executable.
Is the main difference here just that most scripting interpreters don't offer default access to volatile things like pointers, that might let a script get direct memory access?
The real statistics for Symantec (Score:5, Informative)
I do install one copy every few years to verify this personal protest against virus company scare tactics
Mac Os9 has never once been exploited remotely ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the US Army used macs exclusively (mostly MacOS 9 until recently) after being rooted rouitinely using unix and MS Windows NT. For many many years www.army.mil has been run on macintoshes exclusively.
The same is true of many colleges that were rooted and defaced too often on Linux. They installed WebStar and OS 9 and never had to worry again.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.ar my
http://www.google.com/search?q=army+webstar+"os- 9"
Check it out yourself. This entire post is full of factual citations and 100% facts.
No mac in the history of the internet hosting a web server has ever been rooted or defaced remotely.
Why?
Because not one version of Mac OS has ever had a single exploitable hole ever discovered. (classic mac os now up to version 9.2.2 on currenlty sold g4 towers). OpenBSD has had no less than 5 holes (not one) in the default install in the last two years. Mac OS has had ZERO in over 8 years, even when paired up with its preferred web server app.
In fact in the entire SecurityFocus (BugTraq) database history there has never been a Mac exploited over the internet remotely. Scan it yourself.
That is why the US Army gave up on MS IIS and got a Mac for a web serve. Currently it is a honeypot for OSX testing, and US Army use regular Mac OS on other internal servers
This post is not talking about FreeBSD derived MacOS X (which already had a more than a 50 exploits and potential exploits in BugTraq database, and in the news yesterday with Symantec claiming in March 2005 of OSX having remote exploits) I am talking about current Mac OS 9.x and earlier which are highly sophisticated abstract-OS models.
Why is is hack proof? These reasons
1> No command shell. No shell means no way to hook or intercept the flow of control with many various shell oriented tricks found in Unix or NT. Apple uses an object model for procces to process communication that is heavily typed and "pipe-less"
2> No Root user. All mac developers know their code is always running at root. Nothing is higher (except undocumented microkernel stufff where you pass Gary Davidian's birthday into certain registers and make a special call). By always being root there is no false sense of security, and programming is done carefully.
3> Pascal strings. ANSI C Strings are the number one way people exploit Linux and Wintel boxes. The mac avoids C strings historically in most of all of its OS. In fact even its roms originally used Pascal strings. As you know pascal strings are faster than C (because they have the length delimiter in the front and do not have to endlessly hunt for NULL), but the side effect is less buffer exploits. Individual 3rd party products may use C stings and bind to ANSI libraries, but many do not. In case you are not aware of what a "pascal string" is, it usually has no null byte terminator. Additionally certain types of compilers can check range on assignments to prevent out of bounds. Furthermore many good programmers ensure that the bounds are not overwritten.
4> Macs running Webstar have ability to only run CGI placed in correct directory location and correctly file "typed" (not mere file name extension). File types on Macs are not easily settable by users, expecially remotely. Apache as you know has had many problems in earlier years preventing wayward execution.
5> Macs never run code ever merely based on how a file is named. ".exe" suffixes mean nothing, nor are there lame single 'x' executable bits! For example the file type is 4 characters of user-invisible attributes, along with many other invisible attributes, but these 4 bytes cannot be set by most tool oriented utilities that work with dat
Re:Mac Os9 has never once been exploited remotely (Score:5, Interesting)
It was some time ago, and I believe it was the result of a "hack the server, get a prize" type contest.
I'm too lazy to Google it right now but IIRC, the server that was hacked was running the classic Mac OS, WebSTAR, and Lasso, a tool that lets you webify FileMaker databases. There was a vulnerability in Lasso that was used to, per the contest rules, successfully alter the contents of a certain page on the WebSTAR-hosted site.
The prize was awarded, the vulnerability was quickly fixed, and that's the first, last and only time I have ever heard of any server on a classic Mac OS based machine getting hacked.
~Philly
MS moved into symantic's space... (Score:3)
and now, Norton and all the rest are looking to Apple and Linux to be insecure.
While Apple, Linux, BSD, etc. have their security issues, it does not really start to compare with MS. In addition, it is safe to say that an anit-virus is NOT the solution to a Non-MS problem. All of the *nix have various issues, but in the end, the single biggest one is getting an auto updater running for security issues. IOW, the largest threat to MS (Unknowledgable, lazy, or incompatent admins) is also the largest threat to all other systems.
use ClamXav (free virii scanner for OSX) (Score:3, Informative)
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/ClamXav.sht ml [softpedia.com]
bo
it's not market share! (Score:3, Informative)
How can you say 10 million is too small? The population of Canada (where I live) is about 33 million. The installed OS X based is then (about) 1/3 the population of Canada. That's not far from the population of New York city (~15M).
If a worm [caida.org] can hit only 12,000 hosts like Witty did and be called "successful" (it was basically a 100% infection rate), then surely the OS X population is vulnerable.
John Gruber has some [daringfireball.net] articles [daringfireball.net] on this.
This is still just FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like their attempt to talk up a manually-installed program that deleted all your files on the Palm as an exploit, to push their useless PalmOS antivirus. And then their Pocket PC antivirus actually caused people data loss from false alarms.
Until there's an active threat in the wild, AND it's been analysed and an identifying signature discovered, antivirus software's only result is to make your computer less stable and less reliable because of its deep hooks in the OS.
This is not to say that the OS is magically perfectly secure, but anything any AV company tells you about ANY platform but Windows, at the moment, should be taken with a sackful of salt.
I have Symantec AV Corp 9.03 for OS X (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like this is my fault. Sorry.
Malware Schmalware (Score:5, Insightful)
The malware problem on Windows is not primarily the result of the system's popularity, no matter how many times Microsoft claims that is so. Early attacks on the Internet did not target the most popular system; rather, the most attacks have always targetted the easiest systems to crack. That started out with SunOS and, by the mid-90s, was Linux. (If you think Windows has much better penetration that Linux today, just think how much more lopsided the numbers were in 1995-2000 when Linux was the most popular target.) These days Windows systems are easiest by far because at this point they are the only systems which ship without basic filesystem protections (now that it finally has a halfway decent firewall, a mere five years after everyone else).
If Windows had basic filesystem protection enabled by default on all critical filesystem areas, mandated nonprivileged user accounts, and an installer that required a password, suddenly Windows wouldn't get infected every time you sneezed in its general direction.
Maybe the future will prove me wrong but I will be very surprised to find OS X malware become a serious problem no matter how popular the OS gets. I don't suspect that its users are any smarter, but the barriers are a lot higher.
Re:Malware Schmalware (Score:4, Informative)
Really?
I just installed XP Pro and ActiveX was off by default and the firewall was turned on by default. And it yelled at me for not having AV software installed. (F-prot all the way!)
Re:Malware Schmalware (Score:5, Informative)
WOW (Score:4, Funny)
A virus proctection and half-ass security company says that as the marketshare of one of the platforms it supports increases so should sales for the products it creates for that platform.
Did I get that correct?
There's several reasons MacOS X is more secure (Score:5, Insightful)
I do know of people who've had their MacOS X systems compromised - but only among MacOS X Server users who've turned on services without knowing the implications, and then running them without the benefit of a firewall (because "everyone knows Macs are secure". Through bad setup and misconfiguration it's pretty easy to turn a server into "just another Unix box" that's just as vulnerable as any unpatched Linux server.
But that's not the default, and that's not how the client works. Hence at this time, Symantec is just blowing smoke and wondering why they don't sell any copies of NAV and Systemworks for Mac anymore.
Re:Hypotheticals....Hypotheticals (Score:5, Insightful)
The WORST you could do is trash your user environment. NOT the OS.
Who cares about the OS? The OS can be reinstalled in about an hour. I have 40GB stored in my user environment. It gets backed up every day, but a virus, worm, or trojan that wiped out the user environment could cost me a days work without too much trouble. That's a much larger concern to me.
Which virus in the last five years targets data (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Safari runs like crap (Score:4, Informative)
First off, check and make sure popup blocking is enabled. I only see MAYBE one popunder a week, if that (and add the offending site to my mental blacklist, never to be visited again.) Go to the Safari menu and make sure there's a check next to the "Block Pop-Up Windows" item.
Secondly, yes, Konfabulator can really bog down a system if you have too many widgets running. They eat up memory and CPU power, even sitting idle. I have seven I keep open with little peformance imapct, but that's on a Dual 2Ghz G5. If you haven't discovered it yet, Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities/) can be very useful in tracking down where your CPU cycles and memory are going. It even lists all the Konfab widgets seperately, though it doesn't tell you which one is which. So if there's a widget that's being a hog, it'll let you know!
I'd bet that it's a low memory issue, Apple has a tendency to shortchange the memory in their systems, especially consumer level stuff like the iBook & iMac. Running OS X on less that 512MB will bring things to a snail's pace frequently, so a simple memory upgrade might help greatly.
Re:Security through obscurity is not permanent. (Score:5, Insightful)
MORE effort is being spent to fix OS X than Windows - in proportion to market share.
OS X gets fixes from Apple.....
And FreeBSD.
And OpenSSH
And Samba
And Kerberos.
And Mach Developers.
And KHTML/KDE Developers.
And GCC Developers (stack protection,etc)
Plus a bunch more that I'm missing
Re:style over function (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"But it's a Mac..." (Score:4, Insightful)
yes setting up a wireless network was maybe a bit stupid given such poor company security, but with that kind of bad IT administration something was bound to happen sooner or later.
also, look at how many Windows users don't think they need to understand security (the Windows box said is was more secure than ever!).
the moral here is that YOUR COMPANY SYSTEMS SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BE SECURE in the first place so even the most retarded employee can't fuck everything up.
I hope you took the hint and moved everyone to Mac/linux. no? "fool me once, shame on you..."
Re:"But it's a Mac..." (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"But it's a Mac..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free AV ClamXAv (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to see more great, usable free software, donate! You can't imagine the impact you'll have.