“Antivirus experts have identified new versions of three major e-mail worms and say that a ‘war’ between rival virus writers may be to blame for the rash of outbreaks in recent weeks. New versions of the Mydoom, Netsky, and Bagle have all appeared on the Internet in the last 24 hours. Antivirus researchers have uncovered text messages in two of the worms that suggest a battle is underway between virus writers, antivirus companies say,” Paul Roberts reports for IDG News Service.
Roberts reports, “Examples of Netsky.F, Bagle.K ,and Mydoom.H were isolated on Wednesday, according to antivirus company F-Secure. All three variants resemble their predecessors, which spread in e-mail messages with vague-sounding subjects using infected attachments such as .zip, .exe, or .pif files. The viruses have their own SMTP engines and harvest e-mail addresses from infected computers, which are then targeted with infected mail, antivirus companies say.”
Computers running the Macintosh operating system remain unaffected.
Full article here.
Information about switching from Windows to Mac OS X, which currently has zero (0) viruses to date, here.
Since I have ;em handy… Here are some references from a variety of perspectives regarding the technological reasons why Windows is so much more vulnerable than UNIX-based Mac OS X:
* http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20031023.html
* http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/custom/pluggedin/bal-mac082803,0,1353478.column
* http://www.newsobserver.com/gilster/story/2948972p-2706278c.html
* http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/18/technology/circuits/18POGUE-EMAIL.html
* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34978-2003Aug23.html
* http://www.csoonline.com/read/080103/patch.html
Mac’s security is not based on obscurity–a common myth that many tech writers have laid to rest over the past year. Mac OS X is simply a better-designed, less-buggy, more security-conscious product than Windows.
Mac is a smaller target and that IS a great way to help Macs be safer. But that’s just ONE piece of the puzzle. Macs ARE still a tempting target for a lot of reasons–including the challenge and prestige of being the first to make a virus for it, and the segment of people that are jealous of Macs, and high-profile targets like the US Army web site on OS X, and the fact that OS X is UNIX and thus familiar to many programmers, and the fact that OS X has been out for years to give them the chance! And yet… nobody has ever successfully started a virus or worm for OS X.
I would lose a lot of sleep if I depended on MS patches to keep my private data from being invaded or deleted.
Why do Windows get all the virus’s and Mac’s don’t?!
( said in a whiney voice, with alot of saracsm … )
can you cure someone who’s always sick?
You can’t cure someone who’s always sick if they’re sick by choice.
This is getting silly. As the network admin I have to update the virus definitions on my machines almost every day. I shudder to think how much space these definitions will take up by next year. On the other hand I’m certainly enjoying my new powerbook
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Geez… I just finished updating 15 pcs’s this morning!!!
Thank God I am on a Mac : )
I work for a small ISP and this morning we scrambled to use content filtering to block these emails as the new virus scanning couldn’t even scan the encrypted attached files. We got it in place, but somewhere around 1000 messages made it through before we could stop it. And now the updated scanning engines seem to be working. However, our largest competitor, the local phone company (rhymes with “call-smell”) has lost their mail servers because they couldn’t stop the mail onslaught.
It is to laugh.
I love posting messages on our home page that include “Macintosh computers are unaffected…”
~Dak
This is why you absolutely MUST put Exchange behind the firewall and use a unix mailserver to filter mail. If you must use Exchange in the first place.
These viruses are causing havoc at the fortune 500 tech company I work at. I am sure if you add up how may IT hours are spent dealing with them along with lost in employee productivity, wintel machines are extremely expensive compared to Macs.
hahahahahahahahahaahahahaha windows people are funny. eeeewwwwwwww I wet em.
Mo’ Trustworthy Computing.
The answer?
A Mo’ Better Computer
Macintosh
Keeps you from getting the Blues
Ha Ha! Maybe soon some of them might get a clue…..
“Why do Windows get all the virus’s and Mac’s don’t?!:”
Because some people out there really, really, really, really HATE Micro$oft.
And there are some people who really, really, really, HATE Apple, but there aren’t OS X viruses. I suspect Bill Gates paid for them to raise the number of applications not runable on Macs. You see, whatever Jobs has or does not have, Gates wants more.
I read the article and almost fell out of my chair laughing, what a bunch of sorry people. Yet like a dog who returns to eat it’s own vomit, they go back again and again to Windows.
No wonder there are lines outside Apple Stores when they open.
If Microsoft ran a airline, would you fly it?
Cure Disease using your computer
One of our customers actually turned around to me and said that if the viruses kept coming they were going to dump windows and replace the peecees with Macs. Finally some people are starting to get a clue!
I don’t think I will ever understand why people choose Microsoft, even without all the viruses and worms it still looks like it belongs in a museum, alongside British Rail’s tilting train (another design that in theory was excellent, but failed miserably)
Hehe, Windows compared to the APT, now that’s funny! They both made people sick, but one of them managed to sell. I wonder, if the manufacturers of the APT had MS’ marketing folks, would we all be vomiting our way from A to B?
And yet another day dawns where I get up, read the news, and again get that warm glow that only comes from owning a macintosh.
“and again get that warm glow that only comes from owning a macintosh”
That’s true… but WinTel owners can bask in a WORM glow!
I WILL TELL YOU WHY MS IS GETTING ALL THE VIRUSES. Right now we are in a technology war. MS has been trying to spread FUD about Linux for the last three years, and it hasn’t been working. MS has been losing mad business as a result of Linux. In an act of desperation they have funded the SCO Group, which has all of a sudden laid claims to the code used in Linux. The SCO group is using MS funded money to sue companies using Linux, saying they need to pay a License Fee. This evil heavy handed big brrother tactic is making companies fear Linux (fearing a lawsuit, however unfounded), and is threatening to kill Linux. Since Linux is a grassroots movement, Linux programmers are fighting back the only way they know how – writing viruses. The first batch would hijack peoples machines and use them to attack the SCO’s website, and MS’s website. If you own a PC, you are in the middle of a war, plain and simple. Why? Because MS SUCKS, that’s why…
That dog vomit metaphor is great, Sailfish!
Hate for MS is part of it, no doubt. That doesn’t justify deleting people’s files.
Now, what about all the people who ate Apple? They’ve had 3.5 years to do something to OS X. You may be sure people have tried!
finally got one of these emails a couple nights ago. Norton saw it incoming, got rid of it. Yawn. You guys really lack for happy news eh? Not that I doubt these anecdotes I read here, but these end of the world headlines are as funny to me as they are to you. Flame away.
AMEN!!!!
Think about it.. 300 MILLION PEOPLE are running Windows…
You think none of them are annoyed at us Apple ASSHOLES?
You think out of those that are annoyned, none of them are into viruses?
Out of THOSE.. you have what? Around 500,000 virus writers that want to laugh at around 30 MILLION mac fans.. or around 16 milion OS X users…
And not ONE has succeeded?
Enderle, stop fuckin’ lying. Gates, stop lying. Thurrot stop lying. Everyone stop lying and putting fear into your customers.
THERE IS NO CATCH to owning a Mac.