So, MACS are immune! Are they?

[walkinTas]

Here is a story for you Nik, and for all the MAC lovers --> mac trojan

[Bushman Ben]

Here is a story for you Nik, and for all the MAC lovers --> mac trojan

Macs used to fall under the category of "Security by Obscurity" category. These days if you want to get into that start using FreeBSD or some other obscure distribution of Linux. I have a MAC and a PC, I use them both, I like them both. I think "Anti-mac" people are even worse than the pro-mac people when it comes to ignoring faults in their favoured OS.

Anybody who thinks that Macs can't get viruses are uninformed; but its probably worth noting that Macs still only make up less than 10% of the worlds workstations; so its still a lot more valuable for Spam and Malware designers to target Windows platforms.

[photohiker]

Actually, none of this is a surprise. Sooner or later someone had to come up with a trojan that worked on a Mac. It's still not a fair dinkum job, it's a Java insecurity really.

In any case, the real surprise is that a) this topic was started by a moderator; and b) that the forum is mature enough not to turn it into a slanging match (so far)

BB, I use them both as well as Linux. Personal preferences aside, they all work.

[Son of a Beach]

Firstly, I'm not sure if you intended to label me a "MAC lover" or not, but I'm not. I don't love "Media Access Control" or their hexadecimal addresses, even though I do have to use them a bit in my line of work. If you meant "Mac" as an abbreviation rather than "MAC" as an acronym, I don't love them either. However, Macs are my preferred desktop/laptop platform. I just don't feel that strongly about it. We're not all "lovers" of our computer platform just because we use it, but most of us do have a preferred platform.

Secondly, I've never come across anybody who thought Macs were immune to malware. Macs have historically been relatively 'safe' due to having not been targeted much in the past, but I don't think anybody believes they were immune to attacks when they were targeted. I think Macs actually got virus infections before Windows did (in the Mac OS 6 or 7 days, or thereabouts).

Apple has been fairly slack in terms of security updates in the past. They've generally got away with it because of the lack of security attacks targeting Macs, but that was never going to last and they will pay the price for that.

[Ent]

Um? I think Microsoft itself meets many aspects of being malware. My favorite was its anti virus attempt taking out my laptop. Cost ms $60 when sent to the "experts" and came back the same. In frustration I did the debug and work out what was happening myself.

I can still not believe that just waving a connection lead near the Internet could get a virus with Windows. I think it was Blaster. Honestly, nobody on this planet could claim Microsoft had solid security.

As for Apple, well my experience is mainly the iPhone and it is vastly superior than others I have used. Just hate it when Apple decided that you will not be allowed to save attachments, etc.

I hated but gradually respected the various flavors of Unix but days could be lost doing simple things. Then graphic shells were built over it and life just became too hard.

The core if the issues is the core of operating systems. Windows with the registry is asking for trouble. Unix started with a small kernel but it keeps getting bigger. Qnix had the best concept but it seems to have disappeared.

Given the interest by various governments in cyber hacking I think it a foolish hope that any commercial operating system is secured. And as long experience had taught what can be hacked by a government can be hacked by private citizens.

I hate to think of the dollar value lost in business due to malware and operating systems going corrupt.

Cheers

[walkinTas]

Macs are my preferred desktop/laptop platform. I just don't feel that strongly about it. We're not all "lovers" of our computer platform

I think you are probably a little like me in this regard. For me, computers are a tool. I use which ever tool is available and is appropriate to the task at hand.

Symantec published an analysis of Flashback's money-making capabilities. Culprits Could Be Making $10,000 a Day Off Infected Macs

[photohiker]

Symantec published an analysis of Flashback's money-making capabilities. Culprits Could Be Making $10,000 a Day Off Infected Macs

And their business is?

If you consider that the retail on Norton AV for Mac is about $60, then it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that Symantec is probably making more out of this than the virus writers.

You will always find anti-virus companies beating up the advantages of their products. After all, they want you to give them money to slow down your computer. Sometimes the antivirus software seems worse than having a virus.

Apple released their update for Java that patched the security hole and removed common variants of the malware on April 12, and a standalone tool for those without Java installed on April 13.


Dr. Web's count of Macs newly infected with Flashback on any given day.

(from forbes.com)

[Son of a Beach]

One of the difficulties with trying to figure out whether to use virus protection software on Macs for me has been the cost/benefit of doing so. There has been at least one automatically installed update to a popular virus protection tool for Macs that actually deleted all the users files due to some bug in it. Much worse than what most viruses do.

So as long as the threat from malware has been low, I've avoided the malware protection tools on my personal Macs over the years. But I may have to re-evaluate this eventually, as malware becomes more common on Macs (as I expect it will).