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Mello Jr. reports, “‘It began when an infected flash drive was inserted into a U.S. military laptop at a base in the Middle East,’ he explained. ‘The flash drive’s malicious computer code, placed there by a foreign intelligence agency, uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. Central Command. That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control. This previously classified incident was the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever, and it served as an important wake-up call.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Looks like they’ve finally begun to answer that call: Apple’s Mac shipments to government grew 200%, sixteen times faster than the overall PC market’s 12.1%, in Q2 2010 – August 23, 2010
Mello Jr. reports, “The malware originating from the infected USB drive was dubbed ‘Agent.btz.’ It’s a variation of the SillyFDC worm.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: According to Symantec, the SillyFDC worm affected Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000.
Macintosh unaffected.
Mac’s weren’t affected because the virus was written for windows machines.
The more popular Mac become in the government the more viruses will be written to attack macs.
Windows are attacked because they areso many of them compared to other OS’s.
Hackers simply write virus to get get the biggest bang for the buck
@Jim
Boy! Are you asking for it here!
I think we’ve heard that argument before, “security through obscurity” or something like that. I thought it had been debunked.
Jim – that theory has been debunked so many times it’s seriously laughable that you would bring it up here.
Dude…. you are about to get pawned big time.
Does this mean that the hackers and script kiddies will now begin to target Macs?
@ Jim
Get a CLUE please…get educated on the real reason there are no Mac OS 10 viruses. You reasoning is totally flawed.
Thank you.
Jim
ZERO viruses on OS X since it was released in 2001. Enough said.
I can sympathize. While in college, my hard drive was infected by a dirty laptop.
>”Mac’s weren’t affected because the virus was written for windows machines.”
They also weren’t written for Mac because Macintosh computers are more secure by design than Windows PCs
>”The more popular Mac become in the government the more viruses will be written to attack macs.”
The “more”??? There are no viruses for Macs. Increase in usage share has proven to not be an indicator of susceptibility to viri.
>”Windows are attacked because they areso many of them compared to other OS’s.”
That’s part of the reason but its primarily because the OS is so much more vulnerable.
>”Hackers simply write virus to get get the biggest bang for the buck”
Then why has smaller OSes (as compared to OSX) had viruses written for them while OS X has not?
@Jim
Let’s not also forget the ego factor. mac users have been bragging about security for years and yet there hasnt been one good Mac virus in the wild since OSX was released 10 years ago.
You want to try and convince me there isn’t one hacker that wouldnt love to put the smug little Mac braggers in their place?
Bill Gates, that is a very descriptive name you gave your OS.
I believe they call it Windows because you can see what is in a building be looking through the Windows and if you want to pass things in and out a building without using the front door, you just use one of the Windows.
@ Jim
You’re not paying attention. Stop pretending expertise.
You’re comments are an anecdotal bullet list — mostlyf fluff.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/08/new-windows-dll-security-flaw-everything-old-is-new-again.ars
MS Windows has an old security flaw that they can technically fix. They won’t/don’t because it would kill thousands upon thousands of legacy applications. It’s a catch-22 situation. Our country is at risk because of abundant security flaws inherent in MS Windows OS and all you can say is “security via obscurity.”
Isn’t that lemming-speak meaning “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”?
Anyone remember the Windows 95 security screen?
Jim, you ignorant slut.
Sounds like they need some sort of Linux system.
@Jim
Had your fun? You must be LYAO.
Surely we have learned not to feed the trolls. One strong rebuttal is the most that is needed. Better yet, let them get bored and go away.
Viruses? Never!
New slogan:
“Buy a clue, buy a Mac.”
KingMel…
I don’t know, he seems a little illiterate to be a troll. I actually think the poor bugger was serious.
Amazing – I didn’t think dinosaurs existed anymore.
Jim (and any other troll wishing to weigh in here)
Mac OS is not impregnable. There are currently several Trojans which can be downloaded and run on a Mac. They have to be ACTIVELY downloaded and PERMITTED to run by a user with an administrative login.
Having said that, OS X is a version of UNIX, which was designed to be networked, unlike Windows, which was designed to be stand-alone.
In UNIX, nothing can run unless it’s been approved to run by an administrator. Also, every piece of software resides in a library, and there are a limited number of them. There’s really not much room to hide, and if the virus is not running on the Admin account, very little damage can be done anyway. Read more about that here: http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows
Additionally, Macs are virtually invisible on the internet right out of the box. Even without a firewall on, you are essentially in “stealth mode.” “… by default, OS X doesn’t leave many ports open. In contrast, most versions of Windows ship with a bunch of open ports, which is one reason that operating system is a riper target for malicious hackers. And while Leopard leaves open more ports than earlier versions of Mac OS X, so far there have been no known attacks on those default services.” http://www.macworld.com/article/132558/2008/03/connect2504.html
Because Macs are hard to crack, and Windows is easy, the goons target Windows. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. Read about the “Hack-my-Mac” challenge here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181502078
To argue that Macs are only safer because they are too obscure is pointless. It’s INARGUABLE that there are tens of thousands of known viruses and malware for Windows and only a few, including zero viruses, for the Mac.
I think anyone who relies on Windows for storing or processing sensitive information, especially those related to national security, should be considered criminally negligent. That includes the Defense Dept., NSA, CIA, NASA, DIA, FBI and DHS. (DHS uses Windows extensively.)
By the way, Richard Clarke’s “Cyber War” discusses this and other such security breaches. Some really disturbing stuff.
Windows is riddled with security vulnerabilities like swiss cheese. it always has been, and always will be due to its intrinsic “design” (or lack thereof, with so much bolted on over the years). and of course MS has a permenant built-in Windows “back door” (or Back Window?) for itself – AutoUpdate/Windows Genuine Advantage – that in fact would allow it to take total control of your PC and everything on it whenever they want and you won’t even know! (they swear they never will).
Macs can be hacked. but it takes much more work, and goes one at a time (unless it’s an Apple Remote Desktop network). and there is no built-in back door.
the only ultimate answer is heavy encryption. you would think DoD implments that routinely …
Why don’t they ever, ever, ever say that the computers were Winblows PC’s?!?!?
We here all know it, but the mainstream media seems not to.
@Macromancer,
Exactly! I’ve been saying the same for years.
@Jim (it won’t stop … Hope you requested notification of follow up remarks
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You said: >”Hackers simply write virus to get get the biggest bang for the buck”
How the hell much more bang could you get than by writing a virus for an OS that hasn’t been hit in it’s 10 year history?
Put aside the Mac vs. Windows endless debate, the important issue is here is national security. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that “security through obscurity” is true, then why does the US military use the most common and easily infected OS on the planet on some of its most secret and critical systems? Should it not be some obscure, custom built Linux or something? Convince me that corporate donations, “save tax payer money” excuses, and private contractor connections have nothing to do with their IT installation. Who actually made out with bank on those IT contracts?