Apple quietly includes malware prevention update in Mac OS X 10.6.4 - Page 2

Originally Posted by geekdad

It was just a matter of time before Apple has to worry and start patching for malware.
The more market share they gain and the more headlines and buzz they get the more the probabability is that malware will start to be directed at Apple products.......

Originally Posted by Ireland

AppleInsider continues to used the word "quietly". It doesn't fit.

They can't do anything quietly with you guys reporting everything they do. Here, I'll rewrite the title for you:

Originally Posted by mstone

Now you are just being silly. As many as 10 million Americans a year are victims of identity theft. I couldn't find any statistics on people being hit by meteorites.

Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss

It was your argument that identity theft and personal computer hacking are closely related. I never said I bought it, never mind as the source of ten million victims per year. In fact phishing is accomplished in very large part through social engineering exploits. A computer OS can't prevent people from being tricked into giving private personal information to thieves. What it can do is go a long way towards preventing the thieves from getting it without the user's cooperation.

Originally Posted by mstone

Never mind. I thought your argument was you'll have no worries if you just stay away from pirated software. I was replying that proactive measures such as anti-virus do a more thorough job of helping people avoid being hacked. Since despite someone being tricked into visiting a malicious web page the anti-virus will prevent the installation of harmful exploits. So, go on believing that nothing can hurt you, I wish you well.

Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss

Okay, so when has visiting a malicious web page resulted in a Mac exploit? Please don't answer with theoretical possibilities, answer with actual incidences. Just so we're clear, I am addressing the world of the Mac user as it exists today, not at some future indefinite time when some undefined events occur.

Originally Posted by acrobratt

There are a great many times when secrecy is in everyone's best interest. The U.S. is still cracking codes from the Germans and from the Soviet Union, and every time they crack one, they keep it to themselves. The idea is to always be one step ahead of your enemy.

Why would Apple broadcast the fact that they'd killed an existing trojan attacking their systems? If Sophos hadn't reported it, the people who made this malware might simply keep trying to use it, to almost no effect. Now that the secret is out, they will almost certainly modify the program and the whole process starts over again. THANKS SOPHOS!

It's times like this that I wish certain fanatics wouldn't pore over every single like of code in an Apple update. They've almost certainly egged these hackers on.

Originally Posted by mstone

I am finding it difficult to reason with you anymore about this because your replies are becoming more and more evasive in regard to the original post I commented on relating to pirated software as not the only threat to Mac users. If a threat exists then it is possible for a user to become infected even if they never made a deliberate effort to go out and seek torrent software. Why do you suppose Apple took the measures they did with the plist fix? And why do you think they sell anti virus software in the Apple store?

I'm guessing the several dozen security fixes delivered in Safari 5 and 10.6.4 were for someone else, not you, since your holiness is immune to the vulnerabilities that some low life degenerate with pirated software might be victimized by.

Originally Posted by Corax

Anyway, I use Mac for many many years now and never ever had any problems with malware, or even viruses.

Originally Posted by dualie

The five step plan:

1) Write some badass malware and release it into the wild via torrents. Don't worry that most people don't even know what a torrent is and will likely never use it.

2) For extra credibility hire a guy with an English accent and a subtlely trustworthy name.

3) Have the Brit write scare-ware articles in his blog, knowing that cluless "reporters" for tech pubs will be all over it like flies on shit. Make sure to make the the OS vendor look as evil as possible, and use sexy terms like "OS-EX") to make you look in-the-know and authoritative.

4) Sell anti-scareware software.

5) Profit.

Originally Posted by geekdad

I agree with you for the most part. But Apple has never had the market share they do now.

Originally Posted by cvaldes1831

That used to be the case five years ago, however common sense is not enough today. Why? Drive-by infections when sites hosted by reputable companies get compromised.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20000898-245.html

Originally Posted by Maximara

Didn't read the article fully did you? "targets the Windows operating system"

Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss

But it might someday, somehow, in some unknown way, target OSX. That prospect alone should have all Mac users very worried.

Originally Posted by Maximara

....

Regardless of marketshare the trogs that write malware will go for easy targets that is why they went after System 6 when the Mac had less of a marketshare than it does today. However OS X is not System 6 and what malware has popped up is of the social engineering variety and nearly all of that are proof of concepts rather than stuff actually in the wild.

Originally Posted by Mr. Me

This is true. You should, however, make no mistake. There were 26 total Mac-only viruses spanning System 6 through MacOS 9.

The release of Word 6 was the dawn of a new era-- the era of the cross-platform macro virus. The first such virus converted .doc files to .dot files. Office 98 brought Visual BASIC for Applications to the Mac. Word 6's macro language was the pioneering technology for cross-platform technology. VBA was the technology that made macro viruses the dominant form of malware.

Old style viruses had been the exclusive domain of skilled assembly language programmers. With VBA, any idiot with a text editor could write a working virus. The era of the "script kiddie" would not have been possible without Microsoft and its misbegotten technology.

System 6 viruses were distributed via floppy disk, for the most part. When Mac viruses became an issue, freeware antivirus software like Disinfectant was soon to follow. Commercial antivirus software like Symantec Antivirus for the Macintosh came soon after that. With antivirus software installed, it was virtually impossible for an infected floppy to infect additional files. This was due to the design of System 6/7. Mac floppies mounted automatically upon insertion. An antivirus utility could then intercept the mounting process, scan for a virus, and disinfect the floppy before the virus could infect the computer's second floppy or hard drive.

Over the years that followed, the numbers of new Mac viruses did not increase; they decreased. By the end of the MacOS 9 era, there were fewer than one new Mac-only virus per year. This had nothing to do with marketshare. It was because a protected Mac was virtually impossible to infect. You don't waste your time on fruitless tasks.

The other side of virus question is the damage done by the virus. Each of the 26 Mac-only viruses were fairly innocuous. VBA viruses had access only to Office on the Mac. On Windows, VBA viruses had access to the run of the computer. Windows XP saw the most malicious viruses in history. In its early days, while Windows 98 was still the dominant version of Windows, Windows XP withered under a barrage of virus attacks. A rising chorus of criticism forced Bill Gates to respond. He turned this critical flaw into a virtue. Gates claimed that Windows had so many viruses because it was so popular. This was the first time that anyone had ever made such a claim. However, the popular press accepted the assertion with neither proof nor evidence to support the assertion. It goes like this:

Windows has a lot of viruses.
Windows is the most popular OS.
Therefore, Windows has so many viruses because it is the most popular OS.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Windows users accepted the assertion and continue to repeat it to this very day.