Microsoft Ships Antivirus For macOS as Windows Defender Becomes Microsoft Defender (arstechnica.com) 58
Microsoft is bringing its Windows Defender anti-malware application to macOS -- and more platforms in the future -- as it expands the reach of its Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) platform. From a report: To reflect the new cross-platform nature, the suite is also being renamed to Microsoft Defender ATP, with the individual clients being labelled "for Mac" or "for Windows." macOS malware is still something of a rarity, but it's not completely unheard of. Ransomware for the platform was found in 2016, and in-the-wild outbreaks of other malicious software continue to be found. Apple has integrated some malware protection into macOS, but we've heard from developers on the platform that Mac users aren't always very good at keeping their systems on the latest point release. Further reading: Microsoft launches previews of Windows Virtual Desktop and Defender ATP for Mac.
the audacity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the audacity (Score:4, Informative)
Normally I would quickly read an AC post such as yours and dismiss it as a troll post, but in this case you're dead right.
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Microsoft single handedly ruined the evolution of computers. What if we had a ubiquitous and long-standing history of a really good OS instead of Windows? Imagine how much better things would be.
And now Microsoft stoops to spyware and purposefully introduced insecurities with Windows 10.
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Your last sentence nails it. This is being sold as antivirus, but in reality it'll be a way for Microsoft to start gathering data on MacOS users dumb enough to believe Microsoft has their best interests at heart. I have to imagine that's a small subset of Mac users, but I'd imagine some will fall for it.
More abuse than that? My experience: (Score:2)
Microsoft has apparently abandoned the policy of making software that has only the stated goal. Microsoft does not describe updates accurately.
The result is that an update to "Microsoft Defender" can do anything Microsoft wants. An "update" can take control over your computer.
I recently ran Defender on a Windows 7 desktop computer. Immediately after weird things began happening. I
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I am not sure if PC computing history went a different direction things would be any better.
Lets go back to the 1980's PC Market.
IBM (IBM Compatibles) had MSDOS
Apple Used Basic, with self booting floppies.
Commodore 64 was basic, with "self booting" cartridges.
TRS-80 with TRSDOS
In general all these early systems were so primitive and designed for single use The UNIX, VMS and other Mainframe OS's were just to system intensive to run on these early PC's to be affordable for a normal middle class family to own.
DOS variants (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize ms dos was an unlawful Rip-off of dr dos, right?
You're confusing the names.
Your mixing it up with Q-DOS [wikipedia.org], that's the thing that Microsoft ripped to quickly produce MS-DOS and license as PC-DOS to IBM.
DR-DOS [wikipedia.org] is the earlya attempt at bringing multi-tasking to DOS, by Digital Research, the company making the *other* major OS back then i.e.: CP/M - the OS that inspired QDOS, and that Digital Research didn't manage to license to IBM.
QDOS and thus MS-DOS being close to CP/M was a big point for Microsoft. As said above CP/M was the major OS at the time, and having a very similar API meant that application developper could quickly writes port of their software for PC-DOS on the IBM PC.
DR-DOS also leverage the closeness: it's based on Concurrent DOS, which is based on CP/M-86 (which eventually added MS-DOS compatibility) and the whole CP/M family explored multi-tasking with MP/M-86 (including MP/M-86, direct predecessor of Concurrent DOS)).
Digital Research was a significant competitor to Microsoft, that's why Microsoft tried to crush them as much as possible.
(Including making the DOS-based Windows harder to run on DR-DOS)
It's the steps. (Score:4, Interesting)
In general all these early systems were so primitive and designed for single use
Yes, indeed. And weren't even network connected on any large scale, so not much targetted by malware.
Sneakernet was, for a long time, the only viable way for a virus to have an chance at replicating (until BBS were a thing).
The UNIX, VMS and other Mainframe OS's were just to system intensive to run on these early PC's to be affordable for a normal middle class family to own.
Yes, indeed. But on the other hand, those massive machine where multi-users, connected, and among the first to communicate across larger territories, once arpanet started existing.
Meaning that the knowledge about security, etc. did exist.
I wasn't relevant to apply it to Apple II computers or the first 8088-based IBM PC, but the knowledge did exist.
These Early PC OS's had a few commands, and mostly just populated RAM in its executable sections with the program code, and pointed the program counter to that location.
These all these early PC OS's are acceptable to viruses.
Again, I agree. These home machine were simple, and couldn't afford much in terms of security, and on the other hand, weren't much exposed to multi-users, networks, and menace (from anything else than sneakernet).
Now the MSDOS system because of the PC Compatible market, and with a legal loophole IBM had.
Still agree. MS-DOS getting popular was a fluke.
Mostly due to IBM designing an expensive machine (and slightly under-powered. Hey, you gotta protect your core business !) exclusively made out of common, off-the-shelf parts (gotta catchup after missing the micro-computer revolution). Giving a great opportunity to clone (anyone else could buy similar or better parts from the same metaphorical shelf) and make attempts at slightly better or cheaper alternatives.
Also IBM was a big brand, giving even more popularity to the platform.
And thus MS-DOS (and the BIOS underneath, be it IBM's original, or cloners' clean-room re-implementation's Phoenix) becoming a de facto standard.
Microsoft being already at that point marketing itself aggressively, of course were going to win (note that two other BASICs from your list were ALSO written by Microsoft: Apple's non-ROM/non-Integer BASIC is written by Microsoft (as opposed to the in-ROM Integer BASIC), Commodore's BASIC was single-licensed from Microsoft too). No matter which company took off, they were on board automatically.
Created a Generation of software build around MSDOS Compatibility Up to Windows ME. Because these OS's needed to be backwards compatible with older software, they kepts on hacking and tricking the DOS Environment to keep working.
That is the exact point where we start to disagree.
Microsoft systematically opted for the most lazy and fast fix-ups, because they wanted to concentrate more on marketing aggressiveness than on correctness.
e.g.: There was very little effort from either IBM or MS-DOS to standardize on anything but the few offerings of BIOS and DOS. To do anything but simple CLI software, you had to directly bang the hardware.
They could have worked together with various software developper to make something like standard libraries, etc.
Compare the situation with Mac OS which was much more reliant on API, AmigaOS which had strong API offering, etc.
The NT Kernel got rid of a lot of the DOS code, but still had limited compatibility, which still lead to security problems. But the problems moved from easy virus code, to problems with access and authentication, mainly because Multi-tasking, Multi-User OS's was a new thing for the home User, and the fact that software can run in the background without a UI is possible, making it a problem.
The problems were with mostly Microsoft trying to keep as much compatibility with older software than possible, b
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I didn't include them, because many of them were not multi-tasking systems, Windows 3.1 I wouldn't call a multi-tasking system either, they may support multi-applications, but not multi-tasking.
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Most of the Microsoft Architectural problems have been fixed for a while. The biggest problem was the MSDOS based versions of Windows ending with Windows ME.
Once Microsoft started taking security seriously and getting away from the idea that the End User is trusted enough to make good security decisions. Things have gotten much better.
But the biggest problem with Microsoft in terms of Security is just how many people are using their system. If you wanted to make a Spam Bot, or infect a system on an open ne
Re: the audacity (Score:2)
Things have gotten much better.
And your statement can be easily prove just by looking at users' fondness for Windows 10.
Or not, as the case may be.
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The fondness for Windows 10 of lack of, is mostly due the UI overall that they did in Window 8. Windows 95-7. Had minor updates to its UI off the same design (Start button, menu) model. The Tile Interface, really doesn't work for a Desktop Environment. Its reliance on the search feature to navigate beyond the most common items is a big change too.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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I love the idea that some people believe all this nonsense.
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They're the reason why everyone has to rely on Google rather than running their own SMTP.
Man if your ignorance on spam was any thicker we could use it as a magic new building material. The fact you can create your own SMTP server in a few lines of code is the reason why we have spam. In that regard every system is vulnerable to becoming a spambot and if you actually knew what you were talking about you'd be implicating Linux, after all it is the Wordpress platform of choice.
Telemetry vector? (Score:5, Insightful)
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What Microsoft fails to consider is you CAN do something about it, like go with a competitor.
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Reminds me of Microsoft Visual Studio Code - lots of people at work raved about this app, but when I tried it on my MacBook its as full of telemetry as any Windows 10 app
Maybe just maybe -- (1) people raved about it, (2) they raved about it because it's good, (3) it's good because they had the right telemetry to know how to achieve this, (4) better telemetry in the sense of being more representative and more actionable comes from it being opt-out rather than opt-in.
I don't like telemetry. I'm a hypocrite free-loader -- I turn off telemetry on software I run on my own machine, but I happily enjoy the the better products that come from better telemetry submitted by other peop
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Microsoft software is so bad at security that it is individually the reason for the existence of most anti-malware products. I don't see how this move helps anyone.
Make a Linux version also! (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't wait to be able to install security software from a company with as sterling a track record as Microsoft's on my servers!
Also, totally unrelated, today is World Down Syndrome Day [wikipedia.org], and I have a MCSE.
Expanding it's data collection to MacOS now? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since the Windows 10 data collection system doesn't run on Macs, is Microsoft using Microsoft Defender as a foot in the door to get data collection installed on Macs?
I absolutely wouldn't put it past them...but the math isn't exactly bulletproof, either.
I don't know the exact requirements for sandboxing when it comes to apps in the OSX App Store, but I can't imagine Apple letting MS run free with root privileges from their walled garden without at least giving it far greater scrutiny. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's also the sort of entry that is simply incapable of flying under the radar.
If MS isn't going to go the App Store method, that creates plenty of problems. Wi
Future predictions (Score:4, Interesting)
Points of comparison (Score:2)
It's not like Apple has a stellar reputation for security.
It's all depending on your point of reference.
Today's subject is Microsoft.
Compared to the nightmare of security, bugs and telemetry that is Microsoft, Apple and any other vendor HAS a stellar reputation.
autophagy? (Score:1)