“Users of Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh computers have long enjoyed the technology equivalent of a safe neighborhood, where the viruses and security nuisances that bedevil far more common Windows PCs are practically nonexistent. Now, as the Mac is seeing some of its best sales in years, bad guys appear to be casing the joint,” Nick Wingfield reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The two worms were innocuous compared with the most invasive and destructive programs that plague Windows computers; security experts referred to them as ‘proof of concept’ programs. The worms didn’t appear to inflict any meaningful harm on Macs — they required users to go through several steps on their computers before being infected. Yet the appearance of the worms tripped alarm bells among some Mac users and security firms because they were part of a very small handful of malicious Mac programs, known in the tech world as “malware.” Security experts believe it is only a matter of time before more-virulent forms of malware for Macs appear.”
“Security researchers say they have recorded between 100,000 and 200,000 viruses — a term often used interchangeably with worms to describe malicious programs that spread by copying themselves — for Windows and previous Microsoft operating systems. For Mac OS X, the number can be counted on one hand,” Wingfield reports. “Apple of Cupertino, Calif., is becoming a higher-profile target, though. While Apple’s market share remains small, its Mac business was booming last year: The company sold 4.7 million Macs in calendar 2005, a 35% gain from the 3.5 million it sold in 2004 and far better than the 16% growth for the PC industry as a whole during the same period. Apple’s visibility as a company has never been higher, with the smashing success of its iPod music player, an iconic device that has introduced many Windows users to Apple technologies for the first time.”
“In response to the vulnerability identified last week, the company said in a statement, ‘Apple takes security very seriously. We’re working on a fix so that this doesn’t become something that could affect customers. Apple always advises Mac users to only accept files from vendors and Web sites that they know and trust.’ Many users of Apple products and some security experts also believe Macs are more resistant to malware attacks than Windows computers because of smart decisions Apple made in the design of OS X. Out of the box, Apple has set up Macs to make it hard for hackers to do damaging things like surreptitiously install harmful software programs than it has been in the past on Windows XP, the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system,” Wingfield reports.
Full article here.
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Related articles:
Is Steve Jobs human after all? – February 23, 2006
Wired News: ‘Mac attack a load of crap’ – February 22, 2006
Report: Apple developing fix for automatic execution of shell scripts – February 21, 2006
Ars Technica: Fears over new Mac OS X ‘Leap-A’ trojan pointless – February 20, 2006
Datamonitor: ‘Mac OS is just as vulnerable to malware as Windows’ – February 20, 2006
Atlanta Journal-Constitution asks: Is ‘Mac virus’ all just propaganda from Mac haters? – February 20, 2006
Most conspicuously to me is that all the comments in the WSJ article came from the security software companies, not Mac users. Where are the stories of systems crashing, viruses infecting and worms crawling? Are law firms losing their clients data to security issues? Are doctors offices going nuts with corrupted patient records? Quite simply, no. Instead, it’s the security software companies making the claims and predictions. But then, what else would you expect when there are no real issues.
Best quote from the article:
Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, says better software defenses will only go so far, though……Rather than weaknesses in operating systems, such approaches exploit “a bug in peoples’ brains, which is much harder to patch,” Mr. Cluley says.
This is true in OS X AND Windows. No smugness intended.
Ardie:“History tells us that when there were few numbers of computers there were still viruses (the first, if I recall, was used against an Apple).
Not sure which Apple model you are talking about, but in the late 80’s the Commodore Amiga was the first computer I heard of that had virus problems. They were malicious boot sector viruses spread by sharing 3.5″ floppies of the time. And DAMN they were vicious!
Many of the posts on here have been useful so thank you, but many have not. We do not need one other mac fan to say “No, the viruses will not go up. Windows is just crapware! It sucks bal$$!” We’ve heard you before, if you don’t have anything useful to say please don’t say anything.
I think the mainstream media aren’t reporting on this fairly or accurately but I also think some mac users aren’t taking it seriously enough. The fact is it anyone who downloads it and modifies it could easily make something that deletes a users home folder without prompting for a password. Is it entirely apple’s fault if someone opens something from an untrusted source? no. But they could look at their first run of application policy again so that it prompts for a password the first time you run any new code, not just sometimes. I don’t think it’s that inconvenient of a step and it could go a long way to preventing a real attack using this method.
and macdude, some of us want to read our mac news without your little poems to stroke your own ego. Like everyone else, please stay on topic or don’t post anything.
Virus for Mac’s running OS X:
1) Open terminal
2) type “sudo rm -rf /”
3) type root password
Does this classify as a virus? This will be the downfall of OS X. There is a social engineered virus on the loose that will remove everything from your computer. Oh no….we’re all doomed…..
Virus for any flavor of Windows:
1) open Command Prompt
2) type “del /F /S /Q *”
P.S. Notice that the Windows version doesn’t have a step 3. Watch out world – when these get released, it will be the end of computers as we know it…..
I love how this guy tears up Sophos!!!
I See Dead Viruses!
Hilarious, and the truth.