“A report by Agence Presse-France from this year’s DefCon hacker convention in Las Vegas centered on comments from security analyst Cameron Hotchkies. Hotchkies, who works with Zero Day Initiative to find and report security vulnerabilities in Apple software, gave a talk on Mac OS X hacking this past Saturday to a packed room. ‘There are a lot more people getting into it and really getting their hands dirty,’ he told AFP. ‘I’ve been seeing a lot of reverse engineering on the Apple platform,'” Chris Foresman reports for Ars Technica.
“The article goes on to ‘explain’ that an increase in Windows ports and iPhone jailbreaks are evidence that users should start to be worried about hackers and malware,” Foresman reports. “The truth is that increased scrutiny could lead hackers to target Mac OS X, but users jailbreaking an iPhone or a Windows developer porting poorly-written code to Mac OS X isn’t going to lead to rampant malware problems overnight. Users jailbreak iPhones to add software capabilities that aren’t approved by Apple; a bad Windows port is not likely to sell in very high numbers on a Mac.”
Full article, which also rightly reminds readers to be wary of social engineering (phishing and trojans), here.
MacDailyNews Take: Somehow this is “news” yet again, this time to Agence Presse-France. The same “report” has been published quarterly, at least, for the last half a decade. Yet, somehow, we Mac users manage to survive and surf the Web unimpeded on our Macs in the face of all of these “reports.”
In the full Agence Presse-France article, Glen Chapman reports, “Hackers have historically focused devious efforts on computers using Windows operating systems because the Microsoft software has more than 90 percent of the global market, promising evil-doers a wealth of targets. Macintosh computers have been gaining market share and catching the interest of hackers.”
That the Mac is secure via obscurity is a myth. Why, if obscurity means security, in April 2007 was there a virus for iPods running Linux (a few thousand devices total, at most, in all the world), but there are no viruses for the 30 million or so Mac OS X computers that are currently online? Hello? Bueller?
Uh, oh – logic is certainly not what AV software peddlers, Windows PC box assemblers, and the rest of the leeches stuck to the Windows ecosystem want people to hear. Fear is what they’re after. Increased Mac sales always result in increased anti-Mac FUD. It’s as sure as death and taxes. The sheep must be kept in the Windows pen, no matter the cost to reputations, reality, productivity, sanity, etc. Far too many have far too much invested in Microsoft Windows for them to stand idly by and let it all slip away due to a vastly superior solution from Apple. But slip away it does nonetheless.
The idea that Windows’ morass of security woes exists because more people use Windows and that Macs have no security problems because fewer people use Macs, is simply not true. By design, Mac OS X is simply more secure than Windows. Period. For reference and reasons why Mac OS X is more secure than Windows, read The New York Times’ David Pogue’s mea culpa on the subject of the “Mac Security Via Obscurity” myth here.
“Security via Obscurity” is a defense mechanism for the delusional and also tool for Microsoft apologists and/or those who profit from Windows to keep the sheep in the pen. 30 million Mac OS X installs is not “obscure” at all, but seven (7) years of Mac users surfing the ‘Net unimpeded certainly is “secure.” Besides social engineering scams (phishing, trojans; no OS can instill common sense) the only thing by which Mac users are really affected are large swaths of compromised Windows machines slowing down the ‘Net with spam and nefarious botnet traffic targeted at exploiting even more insecure Windows boxes. Get a Mac.
C’mon trolls. Don’t be shy.
How many actual Macs with OS X purchased for normal use by non-hacking consumers have been affected or compromised by malware?
How many actual PCs with Windows purchased for normal use by non-hacking consumers have been affected or compromised by malware?
Take a stab at it.
“holes they target are patched fast quite often before the virus can get into the wild.”
That can’t be it because Apple rates 4th in speed to fix vulnerabilities after Microsoft at #1, Red Hat at #2 and HP at #3. But even with that 4th rating, Apple still takes a staggering 13 times longer than Microsoft to patch vulnerabilities and had 214 critical vulnerabilities in the last 6 months of 2007 vs Vista’s 22. That’s nearly ten times as many.
People may not be exploiting Mac OS X, but it’s got a lot of holes they could use if they wanted to.
“Now I believe that the bigger “high” would come from being the FIRST to introduce a true virus into the MacOSX world”
Nobody’s hacking for the “High” and publicity any more. Unless they “High” they want is to become the prison wife of some big hairy guy named Bubba.
Now it’s all about not getting caught and the money. So wadda ya gonna do? Make a name for yourself hacking Mac OS X and learn to start liking ass rape, Or get rich anonymously hacking Windows?
“People may not be exploiting Mac OS X, but it’s got a lot of holes they could use if they wanted to.”
OOOOOH. Scary. Answer my question, troll.
“Make a name for yourself hacking Mac OS X and learn to start liking ass rape,”
Sounds like you’ve finally found a career goal.
Well I think I am going to have to disagree with most people here. I have heard of something new. A malicious software ecosystem that is appearing on the new Intel macs, making even the most insiduous noxious viruses known to man appear to be a common cold. Apparently with the proper software this software ecosystem can run on a mac. Information is sketchy but this ecosystem contains:
Viruse
Intrusionware
Spyware
Trojans
All of the above.
Fortunately there is a cure for Vista. Reformat the hard drive.
Road Warrior sez:
“Fortunately there is a cure for Vista. Reformat the hard drive.”
LOL!
But that’s only if you’re doing BootCamp.
I use virtualization. The cure there is much simpler: Toss your virtual hard drive file in the trash. Empty trash.
I always keep a handy working backup of the C: drive file. That way when Windows mangles itself to death I just toss out the corpse, copy over the clone and get back to work. This is incredibly easier than having to waste time cleaning out crap and repairing Windows all the time.
(^_^)
Windows is one big virus. The trolls go strangely silent and are unable to answer my question. Big surprise.
Warning! We’re veering dangerously off topic!
Nick Fury sez:
“Windows is one big virus. The trolls go strangely silent and are unable to answer my question. Big surprise.”
Not. Their strategy is sooooo old. It’s called ‘misdirection’. Political scum pull this trick constantly. It goes hand in hand with all the oldie propaganda tricks. I wish I could blame this disrespect for reality on the influence of the Neo-Con-Job dopes like Hannity and Limbaugh. But the formal art of creating ‘truth’ out of garbage goes back to the turn of the 20th century. Informally, lying and obfuscation are as old as mankind.
For excellent and in-depth articles that do a good job of debunking this MYTH, see Daniel Eran Dilger’s two articles at RoughlyDrafted.com:
The Unavoidable Malware Myth: Why Apple Won’t Inherit Microsoft’s Malware Crown
and
Five Factors Shifting the Future of Malware and Platform Security
Spread my question web wide.
Wow this is an incredibly boring topic. How many years has this same argument come up? At least 6 or 7? How many actual exploits? How many users got their machine compromised?
Yeah, I know its coming – those bad people are coming after us now. Its right around the corner. Any day now.
Just pay attention and use some common sense and you will be ok.
“The trolls go strangely silent and are unable to answer my question. Big surprise.”
Oh Wise Nick, Answer For Us! Exactly please, No guesses.
Or can you not even answer your own question?
Good point, dogfriend.
But it’s not boring.
Trolls have no answer to my question.
My question is the pussy kill.
It’s the question that exposes Gates ill gotten gains.
Smell their fear. It stinks of Aqua Velva and Ballmer.
“see Daniel Eran Dilger’s two articles at RoughlyDrafted.com”
Eran is an Idiot Savant without the Savant bit. Any anyone who quotes him as an authoritative source is even dumber.
Steve could boil a baby at MacWorld and eat it on stage and the next day Eran would be praising the new white meat, posting recipes, looking forward to iBaby coming to a supermarket near him and writing scathing articles stating how Microsoft could never have invented it and that they’ll never have an answer for iBaby, Ever.
“Trolls have no answer to my question.”
Seems like you don’t either, which would make asking the question seem pretty stupid.
But I can see your point, Looking at your posts, you probably have spend a lifetime expecting everyone else to know more then you do.
@ Mac+
> The inability of certain people, usually Mac fan, to argue…
LOL. Your “argument” to my post was
“100% false.” (that’s it)
Nice argument there. I wouldn’t be too critical of other people’s ability or inability to argue, when your example is so poor.
About the original story by Agence Presse France. I Googled the headline when the story appeared to see what kind of “legs” it had. I got 14,700 hits from all over the world. Because I Googled the full headline, almost all the hits were from websites, blogs, TV stations, newspapers who had repeated the story word-for-word. And this was just the English version. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story was in many other languages. It was all over Europe, Asia, India, S.E.Asia, Australia, NZ, etc. This is very professional global internet propaganda which has now been read by unknown millions.
“Steve could boil a baby at MacWorld and eat it on stage….”
And somebody that posts a statement like that is brilliant??
“And somebody that posts a statement like that is brilliant”
In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s a common example of the most heinous unjustifiable thing which could be done, used in the intellectual discussion of moral dilemmas, utilitarianism and so on.
As we know, Daniel Eran would find a way to find a way to torture the facts and find good in the act, provided it was committed by Steve Jobs.
Thanks for the enlightenment if that’s what emanating from your telencephalon and you insist on wallowing in crass statements of personal destruction regarding Daniel Eran and myself I do not care to participate in further discussions with you.
Well said sparkplug. the guy is too pathetic. Best avoided.
“Seems like you don’t either . . .”
My guess is:
Mac: zero
PC: over 200 million and counting
“you probably have spend a lifetime”
Stay in school.
“Exactly please, No guesses.”
Check your reading comprehension. I asked for a ballpark figure. Your demand for precision is your pathetic attempt at a comeback.
Face it. The reason why hackers hack Windows so much is because it is easy and cheap. Criminals usually go after the ‘low handing fruit’. Why are file sharing services so prevalent? They are relatively easy to use and free.
Not until someone develops a way to hack a Mac easily and cheaply will there ever be a problem of hacking Macs.
“My guess is:”
Well the one thing we know is your Mac number is wrong, and we can all make uneducated guesses like Nick has.
Even estimates for the Storm botnet, one of the largest ever recorded give a huge range from 250k active infections (from someone who actually counted) to 50 million (from someone like Nick who took a wild assed guess based on what they thought about Windows viruses). Even including the wild assed guesses, people clustered around the lower numbers of 1-10 million infected at it’s height and 250k infected now, or to put it in perspective, anywhere from a measured 0.025% of the user base to guesses at up to 1%.of the user base.
And all these are people too dumb to be running up to date antivirus software, since those that do have no infection problem.
There are currently about 10 active file infecting viruses which pose any threat, also a big difference 100,000 viruses claimed.
Run modern antivirus software on a modern patched Windows system and you’ll have no virus or spyware problems.
Fall behind with patches, or don’t run Antivirus, do so at your own risk. But avoiding problems on Windows is so mind numbingly easy and inexpensive that it’s really not an issue except for a small and lazy percentage of users. To claim that this is any reason to prefer one system over the other is just stupid.