NY Times article on Windows security...

chrismusaf

Did anyone read the article today in the NY Times about Windows security?



Here's the article (free subscription required)



Here's an excerpt: Other operating systems like Linux, Unix and Macintosh, experts say, all have security vulnerabilities. "But they don't get the attention and the attacks because, unlike Microsoft, the other technologies are not deployed on 300 million computers," said Russ Cooper, a security expert at TruSecure, a computer security company. "This is not just Microsoft's problem."



I just had to write a letter to this guy:



Mr. Cooper,

\tI recently read an article in the New York Times with your statement that "they [Macintosh, etc] don't get the attention and the attacks because, unlike Microsoft, the other technologies are not deployed on 300 million computers." Well if you follow your theory, given the fact that there are nearly 30 million people using Mac OS X out there, and roughly 71,000 known viruses total, there should be about 7,100 viruses for Mac, right? Okay, there would be less, because I agree that there is less attention on the Mac OS. However, there would at least be some, right? Well, there current number of viruses for Mac OS X: zero. That's not less attention, that's no attention. Mac OS X (and most other UNIX-based operating systems) are the most secure in the world, hands down. Even the password encryption takes 4,096 times longer or 4,096 times as much memory to crack than even the most powerful Windows Server. All actual security flaws aside, it worries me severely that Windows is running our national defense systems, even if the only problems were because of the extra attention. The government should at least diversify onto several different operating systems in order to protect against an attack.

\tSincerely,

\t\tChris Meesseman

jukebox hero

Quote:

Originally posted by chrismusaf

Did anyone read the article today in the NY Times about Windows security?



Here's the article (free subscription required)



Here's an excerpt: Other operating systems like Linux, Unix and Macintosh, experts say, all have security vulnerabilities. "But they don't get the attention and the attacks because, unlike Microsoft, the other technologies are not deployed on 300 million computers," said Russ Cooper, a security expert at TruSecure, a computer security company. "This is not just Microsoft's problem."



I just had to write a letter to this guy:



Mr. Cooper,

\tI recently read an article in the New York Times with your statement that "they [Macintosh, etc] don't get the attention and the attacks because, unlike Microsoft, the other technologies are not deployed on 300 million computers." Well if you follow your theory, given the fact that there are nearly 30 million people using Mac OS X out there, and roughly 71,000 known viruses total, there should be about 7,100 viruses for Mac, right? Okay, there would be less, because I agree that there is less attention on the Mac OS. However, there would at least be some, right? Well, there current number of viruses for Mac OS X: zero. That's not less attention, that's no attention. Mac OS X (and most other UNIX-based operating systems) are the most secure in the world, hands down. Even the password encryption takes 4,096 times longer or 4,096 times as much memory to crack than even the most powerful Windows Server. All actual security flaws aside, it worries me severely that Windows is running our national defense systems, even if the only problems were because of the extra attention. The government should at least diversify onto several different operating systems in order to protect against an attack.

\tSincerely,

\t\tChris Meesseman

Ah yes. I see a flaw already with your logic... You assume that people in the media are interested in having informative, useful articles.

chrismusaf

It kills me that the people who are in charge of these companies think this way. This guy is the surgeon general of TruSecure. Isn't that the kind of person that should know this sort of factual information? I wonder how much M$ put into the brainwashing of these people...

jukebox hero

Quote:

Originally posted by chrismusaf

Well, there current number of viruses for Mac OS X: zero.

See, I can't even get a good virus for the Mac.

ghost_user_name

The biggest security hole on any platform always has been, and always will be, the end users. They're the ones that open the email attachments. They're the ones that don't take security seriously and give out their password. It's all about social engineering. Most encryption or password protection systems are not compromised because of some strange vulnerability... they become compromised because someone, somehow, was stupid enough to let the password become available to a malicious party that should not have access.



The author in the article is mostly right. If Mac's had the majority of the market share, we would see more attacks on Macs. Plenty of user's would be intelligent enough to open and execute email attachments. There's just not a terribly good way around that.



Look at it this way. Linux has a majority of the server market. Linux servers are also not without their security flaws. Plenty of those boxes get compromised through various security flaws. But you don't get out of control problems, because most of the time, you have competent sysadmins maintaining them. In this case, the sysadmin is the end user of that system, for the purposes of this post.



So don't get all excited and think that this guy's logic is wrong. Sure, it's a huge Microsoft problem currently for a number of reasons, one of which happens to be that their software is installed on the majority of personal computers in the world. Put OS X in the majority, and you bet your ass you would see attacks made on it.

chrismusaf

Well, notice I said Mac OS X... there are about 73 (I think) for Mac OS 9, but out of 71,000, that's not bad. Remember though, that all but 12 of those are for Microsoft Office macros!

chrismusaf

Quote:

Originally posted by LoCash

So don't get all excited and think that this guy's logic is wrong. Sure, it's a huge Microsoft problem currently for a number of reasons, one of which happens to be that their software is installed on the majority of personal computers in the world. Put OS X in the majority, and you bet your ass you would see attacks made on it.

Again, I go back to my original theory that if there are 71,000 total viruses, then there must be at least some for Mac, but there are NONE. The purpose of these "attacks" is to implant some malicious software into the system, right? Well, there's nothing to infect with. Sure, if Mac OS X was in the majority, there would be attacks, no doubt, but you must agree that there wouldn't be nearly as much success as hackers have had with Windows...

jukebox hero

Quote:

Originally posted by chrismusaf

Again, I go back to my original theory that if there are 71,000 total viruses, then there must be at least some for Mac, but there are NONE. The purpose of these "attacks" is to implant some malicious software into the system, right? Well, there's nothing to infect with. Sure, if Mac OS X was in the majority, there would be attacks, no doubt, but you must agree that there wouldn't be nearly as much success as hackers have had with Windows...

Add to this that, even if someone did write malicious code, how would it propogate itself to other users on an operating system such as OS-X, which has permissions to stop that sort of thing.

chrismusaf

Exactly. Apple has taken the "enduser" problem out of the loop. If you are trying to hack into someone's mac you're going to run into permission problems a dozen times before you get the job done.