ZDNet Australia’s Munir Kotadia is on a mission. His goal: to imply that Mac OS X has security flaws, ostensibly just like Windows, by ferreting out and quoting the most obscure security companies and spokespeople he can find. This time, Kotadia writes, “OS X contains unpatched security flaws of a type that were fixed on alternative operating systems more than a decade ago, according to a security researcher credited with finding numerous bugs in Apple’s increasingly popular platform.”
Blah. Blah. And blah.
Last time we visited Munir’s quixotic quest to provide a virtual handhold for Windows proponents on the vertical ice sheet that is Mac OS X vs. Windows security, he told us Mac OS X users of the “potential of attack” from a “destructive piece of malware” last September. Apparently, the threat was so dire that nothing happened to users of Mac OS X. As usual.
If you’re interested in reading all about Munir’s latest ginned up Mac OS X security “threat,” that will once again amount to nothing, please click: Kotadia’s latest pile of FUD.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Joke of the month: Gartner warns of Mac OS X ‘spyware infestation’ potential – March 30, 2005
Symantec details flaws in its antivirus software – March 30, 2005
Motley Fool writer: ‘I’d be surprised if Symantec ever sells a single product to a Mac user again’ – March 24, 2005
Symantec cries wolf with misplaced Mac OS X ‘security’ warning – March 23, 2005
Symantec’s Mac OS X claims dismissed as nonsense, FUD – March 22, 2005
Symantec warns about Mac OS X security threat – March 21, 2005
Apple: ‘Opener’ is not a virus, Trojan horse, or worm – November 02, 2004
ZDNet Australia publishes latest Mac OS X security FUD article – September 09, 2005
Hackers already targeting viruses for Microsoft’s Windows Vista – August 04, 2005
16-percent of computer users are unaffected by viruses, malware because they use Apple Macs – June 15, 2005
ZDNet: How many Mac OS X users affected by the last 100 viruses? None, zero, not one, not ever – August 18, 2005
Intel CEO Otellini: If you want security now, buy a Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC – May 25, 2005
Apple touts Mac OS X security advantages over Windows – April 13, 2005
97,467 Microsoft Windows viruses vs. zero for Apple Mac’s OS X – April 05, 2005
Apple’s Mac OS X is virus-free – March 18, 2005
Cybersecurity advisor Clarke questions why anybody would buy from Microsoft – February 18, 2005
Security test: Windows XP system easily compromised while Apple’s Mac OS X stands safe and secure – November 30, 2004
Microsoft: The safest way to run Windows is on your Mac – October 08, 2004
Information Security Investigator says switch from Windows to Mac OS X for security – September 24, 2004
Columnist tries the ‘security through obscurity’ myth to defend Windows vs. Macs on virus front – October 1, 2003
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003
Fortune columnist: ‘get a Mac’ to thwart viruses; right answer for the wrong reasons – September 02, 2003
Shattering the Mac OS X ‘security through obscurity’ myth – August 28, 2003
Virus and worm problems not just due to market share; Windows inherently insecure vs. Mac OS X – August 24, 2003
…do you at MDN insist on giving these trolls hits?!! They’re getting RICH from writing this trash because you link to them!
MDN word = LESS
Can’t we have LESS of this crap on here and more real news?!
There was a guy recently who wrote an article that appeared on USA Today about Macs, and his comment was something like “mostly virus free Mac OS”. I wrote him an email and instead of blasting him I told him I was under the impression that there were no viruses for Macs, and I was frightened of this threat.
I asked if he would be so kind as to tell me what the viruses were for MacOSX so I could look out for them.
Needless to say, he never wrote back.
Funny how the moment you ask someone to come up with evidence of what they write about, they hide like roaches when the kitchen light comes on.
What’s the USA Yesterday guy’s email address?
Mac OS X will have security flaws once people figure out how to run Windows apps on it.
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MDN Magic Word: “feeling” as in I have a feeling that the author loaded a Sony/BMG CD on his Mac and clicked “OK”.
Read the article. What in the world is a low-hanging bug?
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Yes, we have no banana exploits on Mac OS X.
Microsoft and it’s backers have been very quick to point out that there were more security advisories regarding UNIX and Linux in 2005 than there were for Windows.
But for anyone that takes a closer look, virtually all of the *nix security issues require physical access to the machine in some form. Most of the Windows ones can be installed and run from half the planet away.
Funny how that never gets pointed out, isn’t it?
Leprechauns hide inside Mac OS X.
You’ll see. Someday you’ll allsee.
Something really struck me when I read that “article”: the inference that Apple does not pay people to report or withhold public disclosure of bugs. Check the comment about how Apple provides no “incentives.” This and their own self-promotion of their services smacks of self-interest. Now, that is not to say that flaws do not exist in OS X. I am confident they do, but it is the inability to exploit those bugs without cooperation from an admin user that I suspect drives Apple’s pace at repair. And probably helps to drive the poopr Windoze advocates to distraction when they know their god of choice cannot get away with that approach.
OSX: The next pin to drop….
Oh, just forget it. It’ll never happen.
MDN: people. People are the biggest security flaw.
ahahahahahahahahahahaha LISTEN NO SUCH THING AS A VISUS IN A MAC
AND AGAIN
NO SUCH THING AS A VIRUS ON A MAC
ONE MORE TIME
NO SUCH THIS AS A VIRUS ON A MAC
I HOPE THEY UNDERSTAND NOW
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“…do you at MDN insist on giving these trolls hits?!! They’re getting RICH from writing this trash because you link to them!”
Some people will click on it, but myself will not, because I have lost all respect for Zdnet and all their idiot writers. That fool Jason D. O’Grady writes for them, and he has said nothing but BS on Zdnet and on his own PowerPage.org blog. He is the one that spewed the Apple Plasma using Viiv technology at MacWorld flop of a rumor, trying to be all witty and cool. He was poking fun at the Mac community to try to get attention and be a prankster, and he did, a lot. But in process he lost all credibility.
** We should take these warnings seriously and demand that Apple fix them! **
– Mark
M u n i r K o t a d i a i s a m o r o n.
One more time for the search engines:
Munir Kotadia is a moron.
I thought the script was concatenating spaces. One last time for the concatenating moron:
M u n i r _ K o t a d i a _ i s _ a _ f u c k i n g _ m o r o n.
Damn but that looks like shit too.
I’d guess that none of the Apple fanboys here read the material. Equally obviously, the Mac Daily News team, while it did, has problems with reading comprehension.
I’ll spell it out:
1. This is not coming from Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott.
2. It is coming from a senior code-auditing researcher.
3. The gentleman in question knows about code and OS X, *nix, and Windows systems, like the Mac Daily News team knows what color polonecks Steve Jobs likes.
4. He has previously found serious bugs in OS X and alerted Apple to them.
5. This included a bug whereby a non-privileged user could, with trivial ease, create and delete administrative accounts.
6. He says there are similar problems that remain unfixed.
Want to bet your machine on it?
There are probably very few people here who know much at all about the internals of OS X, let alone who have the knowledge to compare it with other systems. As he says, the problems will arise if (and perhaps this is a big if) Apple moves out of its 2%-odd niche. If that happens, of course people are going to start hammering on the code.
Perhaps Apple should have taken time out from idiocies like Dashboard (which functionality was available from a 3rd-party anyway) and spent some time auditing its code.
It beats me that the reality distortion filed is so strong that Apple users are not *annoyed* at Apple’s insouciance. After all, which is better – knowing about the problems and demanding that Apple get its finger out getting in a girlie tizzy because someone has the gall to criticize the beloved company (and by extension the beloved leader)?
As he says, the problems will arise if (and perhaps this is a big if) Apple moves out of its 2%-odd niche. If that happens…
You missed some news. Apple got out of the 2%-odd niche LOOOOONG ago.
What do you say it should have happened by now?!
This expert on all Macs is following so closely Apple that he had not yet realized that Apple is well over 2% of the market now? and growing?
Apple made the 5th record quarter in a row topping 1 Billion $ revenue in the non-US market. Growth is over 50% YoY.
2% MY ASS!
The only thing which has kept Mac OS X relatively safe up until now is the fact that the market share is significantly lower than that of Microsoft Windows or the more common UNIX platforms.…
This comment is pure ignorance. OS X is the LARGEST deployed Unix platform of all. More common Unix platforms? In which planet?
Were all still waiting this attack or attacks.
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Apple refused to comment on Archibald’s views. A spokesperson for Apple told ZDNet Australia that the company is “not going to comment on what other people say about Mac OS X”.
Well, let me comment on this:
When we spoke to Apple on the phone about this issue, the security team had never even heard of the application, and burst out laughing at the simplicity of the vulnerability,
Are you seriously gobbling this? Phoning the security team? Get real.
Concerning auditing tools. Intel and Apple are auditing code like mad. What this joker is spreading around?
Archibald, good name. Must be a cartoon character speaking.
OK, call me when one single real world user is actually impacted by any of these so called vulnerabilities. Until then…..
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. If these vulnerabilities exist, I’d expect them patched posthaste. If Apple is slow, that’s a Microsoft-like problem.
Bugs I have reported to Apple (low-priority ones) have had reasonable turnarounds. I would expect that high-priority security bugs are dealt with in smaller timeframes.
There is a lot of FUD out there – but fear is a good thing sometimes. Keeps you sharp.
MDN take seems a bit OTT – absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. One will come, eventually. We’re well-protected – but not perfectly.
ZDnet and C|net are the most rabid Apple bashers in the media. Virtually everything they write is either a lie or is full of important omissions.
No one with a mind of their own would waste brain waves on their trash.
Nice to see the growth of the blogsphere forcing them further and further into irrelevance.
The article is BS but remember, it is an Australian that is doing the writing. When he talks market share he has no idea that Apple’s US market share is over 4%. He is talking World market share which is up to around 2%, at long last.
If there were easily exploitable Mac OS X vulnerabilities they would have been exploited by now. You can count on it.
Here’s a list of events that SureSec, has published on their website:
http://www.suresec.org/event.htm
They seem to be partial to Hacking OS X.