“The stories have started to emerge and now the battle has begun. After years of being off-limits to hackers, the Apple Macintosh is now subject to the same sort of abuse that the PC has endured and survived over the years: malware,” John C. Dvorak writes for PC Magazine.
MacDailyNews Take: This is not the first trojan for Mac, not by a long-shot, nor is it likely to be the last.
“Apple says it will send out some patches this week, but this just marks the beginning of a long battle. It will be ugly, as the platform is largely like the unprotected, the users are clueless, and there is zero resistance within the platform. The few Mac users who survive the barrage will probably be former PC users who are not so easily fooled by fake websites,” Dvorak writes. “That said, a bunch of websites are now injecting code into the Mac to infect it with new Trojans.”
MacDailyNews Take: This being not the first trojan for Mac, Dvorak’s theory that a “long battle is just beginning” has no basis in fact.
Mac users “been trained since birth not to deal with such issues by hand. It’s beneath them,” Dvorak writes. “I use AVG as my anti-virus/anti-Trojan product, and when I encounter a website trying to pull this sort of thing, I get an immediate error message and the site is blocked. Currently, the Mac has no such software that I know of, and the user has to hope that Google, some other search engine, or the browser itself has some protection. Good luck with that.”
MacDailyNews Take: This trojan was identified by Intego, a company specializing in Internet security and privacy for Apple Macintosh since 1997. There are multiple AV software packages available for Mac OS X.
Dvorak writes, “PC users will be laughing out loud as this continues because this is just the beginning… While the PC users have literally endured decades of this sort of game playing, Mac users have rarely seen any of it. They have no idea what they are in for. This also makes you ask yourself exactly how well protected smartphones are against attacks like this? You can be sure that the iPhone and iPad are going to be next on the hit list.”
MacDailyNews Take: The only thing you can be sure of is that laughing at nothing is a clear sign of mental illness.
“That said, many in the PC world have warned Apple that its OS is not any more secure than a Windows OS,” Dvorak writes. “And because there is no security infrastructure with scads of anti-malware systems available, the systems are actually more vulnerable.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, multiple AV software packages are available for Mac OS X and have been for years.
“So we’ll see how this situation plays out, but one thing is for certain: the happy-go-lucky Mac owners will end up grumbling about it the same way PC users have done over the years,” Dvorak writes. “And this ‘What? Me worry?’ attitude and smug smile will forever disappear. That’s the good news, as far as I’m concerned.”
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is nothing more than a trojan. There has never been a Mac OS X virus. Dvorak’s attempt to use a Mac trojan to equate with hundreds of thousands of actual self-replicating viruses, worms, trojans, and other malware on the Windows PC platform is pathetic and likely due to fear of the fact that Mac has outgrown the PC market as whole for 20 consecutive quarters, or the last five years straight. When you work for an outfit calling itself “PC Magazine,” it’s understandable that the fear of becoming irrelevant would be quite strong. It’s sad that such fear produces garbage articles such as this.
What’s ironic is that Dvorak is calling Mac users ignorant while assuming his PC-using readers are ignorant enough to not understand the difference between a trojan and a virus, or think that Mac trojans are nothing new, or believe that Macs don’t have AV software available, or that a single Mac trojan equals the abject security debacle that is the Windows PC.
In closing, with smug smiles still firmly affixed to our faces, here’s our usual oft-repeated reminder for Mac users and anyone who’s trying to use any other platform: Do not download and authorize the installation of applications (Trojans) from untrusted sources. No OS can protect users from themselves (or we wouldn’t be able to install any software). Those who grant attackers access to their computers, should not be surprised to find their computers are compromised.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “kevin p.” for the heads up.]
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– – –
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Microsoft Windows virus spreads rapidly; Apple Macintosh unaffected – November 28, 2005
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‘Zotob’ worm rapidly infects Microsoft Windows; Macintosh unaffected – August 15, 2005
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New Windows Bagle virus variants spread; Macintosh unaffected – July 16, 2004
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Five new Windows Bagle virus variants break nasty new ground; Macintosh unaffected – March 19, 2004
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Destructive MyDoom.F virus deletes Windows users’ files; Macintosh unaffected – March 01, 2004
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‘Doomjuice’ worm emerges, targets Microsoft; Macintosh unaffected – February 10, 2004
New version of Mydoom Windows virus appears, attacks Microsoft; Macintosh unaffected – January 28, 2004
Latest Windows virus ‘MyDoom’ sets new infection records worldwide; Macintosh unaffected – January 27, 2004
‘MyDoom’ Windows virus spreads rapidly; Macintosh unaffected – January 26, 2004
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New ‘Swen worm’ masquerades as Windows Security Update; Macintosh unaffected – September 19, 2003
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Hackers hijack Windows PCs for porn serving; Macintosh unaffected – July 11, 2003
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Microsoft bug exposes millions to attack; Macintosh unaffected – November 20, 2002
