9 comments

This is why I’ve always been against Mac growth. The more people who convert to Mac, the bigger the crosshair will become.

Hopefully Apple will keep plugging any holes in OS X though and make it as hard as possible for these f***wits to hack things.

Jamie McFarlane, on June 20th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Not the “security through obscurity” argument again. Dear oh dear. That one was put to bed years ago.

John Keogh, on June 21st, 2008 at 8:47 am

As I understand it, one of the great design decisions of OS X was to have a separate “machine” system - the UNIX base, and desktop OS - what most of us think of as OS X. It effectively works as a firewall to keep ne’er-do-wells from trashing your computer. While there may be a few instances of attacking Quicktime or some other programs, this design essentially quarantines the attack. Without specific Admin permission, multiple permissions in fact, it keeps catastrophic damage at bay. The user still needs to be a willing participant in making any virus/trojan/attack work.

Is my impression correct? If so, I think that makes the user base a relative non-factor, except in attracting more attempts. And has their ever been any buzz about someone with even an inkling of how they’d do it?

imajoebob, on June 21st, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I come from an era where we’d have to use a ‘Disinfect Bath’ Mac to clean any floppies or drives coming into the design lab at university.
Today’s threats to OS X just don’t compare with how things were back in System 7.
Don’t forget the market share back then was still approximately the same as it is today.

So far, all these nasties rely on the user taking to install and run.
The social engineering aspect is what these things depend on.

So really, as always, the user is still the weakest link in the chain.

Alex, on June 21st, 2008 at 3:13 pm

@imajoebob

It all falls down when you can escalate yourself to the “machine” (AKA root) account through security holes you could drive a fleet of buses through.

http://www.rixstep.com/1/20080620,00.shtml

SC, on June 21st, 2008 at 9:19 pm

I’ve always suspected the ‘virus scan people’ to be behind the problem, at least to some extent. What better way to sell product and justify their existence than to create the problem and create the need. check out my blog: http://mdoncall.blogspot.com

Doctor S, on June 23rd, 2008 at 4:35 am

@SC,
Thanks for the link. And the reassurance that I may have saved more than $129 staying on 10.4 (G4 helps in that decision, too).

As best I can understand this blog,
1) You have to be running Remote Desktop, so if you’re not one of the 50 or so using it you’re safe (okay, slight exaggeration on the users),
2) You have to run the script - or at least allow it to run, and
3) if it’s as easy to do as Rix is saying, he’s untrustworthy for publishing the scripts - even if they appear elsewhere, which makes what he says untrustworthy, which makes his scripts untr- ooh, I’m getting dizzy.

Acknowledging my limited ability to understand code, this appears to be more of the stuff aimed at cooperative naîfs.

Or maybe I’m just an uncooperative naîf.

imajoebob, on June 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 am

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