Mac's Immunity To Recent Virus Attacks

bluepinstripe writes " An article over at MacCentral references two articles about the Mac's immunity to the recent virus attacks." This is nothing new, but worthy of note, from time to time, such as now.

Comments

my mom

[BortQ]

This is the single biggest reason that my mother uses a mac. I'm still required for some occasional technical support calls from her, but I can't imagine how bad it would be if she ran windows.

So join the crusade. Give your mom a mac!

Re:my mom

[BortQ]

If everyone's mom had a mac, then the virus writers would target macs, not windows.

Maybe so, but there's a difference between there being lots of viruses on a platform and those viruses causing havoc. Windows is a very inviting environment for a virus. You're allowed to do all sorts of stuff. That is why viruses cause so much damage to windows infrastructure.

For example, the SoBig worm wasn't bad because it existed, it was bad because it was able to do what it did. In more secure environments this would not have been possible.

Re:bad analogy

[mhesseltine]

Macs aren't "vaccinated" against Windows-based e-mail viruses or worms.

Agreed. It just seems like people brag about something that is painfully obvious (Macs don't get affected by Outlook viruses; people who are vaccinated against polio don't get polio)

Saying Macs are "immune" in this case is about like saying my car is immune to Polio. It just doesn't apply in this case. Macs won't be "immune" to Mac-based viruses, when they come along.

Again, agreed.

Anyone dumb enough to launch an executable e-mail attachment without first virus-scanning it is dumb enough to do it on any platform they run. Bragging about Macs not being susceptible to this round of viruses is merely bragging about how few Macs there are, and how it isn't worth the time of the virus-writers to make Mac-based viruses. Whoopee.

And this leads to another point. Why do we call them "Windows" viruses. It isn't a function of Windows, per se, that allows this to happen. It's a function of Outlook and OE that causes the problem. If mail.App ran binary attachments without a scan, Macs would be just as vulnerable as Windows machines.

We should start calling them Outlook viruses. Put the blame where it belongs, on the bad email applications.

Why so nasty about Macs?

[GreatDrok]

I don't get all these nasty comments about Macs. I don't actually own one, been a Linux user since 1994 and before that I was a SUNOS guy. Never really liked Macs but I could see that people found them easy to use so that was fine. OSX is by far the best of both worlds, my next laptop is almost certainly going to be a powerbook, doesn't mean I won't continue to like Linux, its all UNIX, its all good.

The one thing I find odd is the lie that is simplicity. Macs are a doddle to use and yet they are clearly also nice secure systems. Windows is less easy to use and yet easier to write viruses and trojans for. Chewbacca defense? It does not make sense! If Macs were as common as PCs they still wouldn't suffer the same level of viruses and worms as Windows does. Same is true for Linux. Besides which, what if we had 25% Windows, 25% Linux, 25% Macs and 25% others. I bet Windows would still have by far the greatest number of viruses etc.

Cool off guys. Macs are good. Its all UNIX and that is good. A little bit more of this and Windows will be the minority just as it should be.

It's all about perception...

[xTMFWahoo]

Mac's seem to be immune from viruses not because Mac's are totally secure, it's due to the fact that the clowns that write viruses HATE Microsoft and want MS to look bad. Every OS has holes of some sort. No software is perfect.

obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am i the only one that thinks this article should be on the front page?

Default OSX user doesn't run as admin

[dr2chase]

Macs derive some benefit from their approach to "administrator rights". I've got them, but to actually do anything, I need to type a password.

On Windows (at least W2K) if you need administrator privileges, then they're on all the time. Accidentally run a virus while in administrator mode, and it gets to use those administrator privileges, too.

Re:AppleScript, AddressBook, and Mail.app

[Anonymous Coward]

You can write such Applescript but you also would have to click yes to a dozen of messages like:

Do you want to open this?
Shall I send this mail to these 300 addresses
Where do you want to unzip this executable
Shall I start it?
Shall I make a copy and send to all entries in your address book?

Then yes, if you are so dumb as to answer "Yes" to all those questions everytime an app gets fired by the Applescript and opens windows on your face then yes, it would be possible.

On Windows the OS answers "YEEEEEEESSSSSS please do" without you ever noticing what is going on.

That's why the worm/virii spread so easily on WIndows: it is dumb.
Also, every Windows app run as 'system' that is even IM or IE is like GOD on Windows.
Mac applications do not have those rights and more, root user is disabled by default and the average user does not even have the tools to activate it or know how to.

A virus on Mac would need the active collaboration of the user to spread. On Windows it has the granted collaboration of Windows. Like giving the keys of you mansion to the thieves themselves while you are on vacation.

Keep trusting Windows, it is so clever :-)

And oh yes: it is just visibility LOL

Automated software updates

[tomem]

I didn't see anyone pointing out that Apple has an excellent automated software update mechanism in place, which by default looks weeky for updates and asks if users want them. If you hit return rather than cancel, you get your update. No sysadmin assistance is required, but that factor in Mac adoption is another story. Some users will reject an update because they don't want to take the chance that it requires a reboot (most security patches do not, but other updates often do). But at least during virus scares, the updates are likely to be accepted. If Macs were more common, it seems like the necessary updates would be in place more universally than they are among Windows users.

Can anyone comment on how effective the comparable process is for PC, Linux, Unix, and whether there is a differential between these and the Mac update process?