Apple Uncommunicative About Security Holes

blackmonday writes "Kieren McCarthy of Techworld argues that Mac OS X is rife with security holes, and that Apple is doing a 'half-hearted' job of patching their operating system security holes, and has a 'strange habit of pretending a big problem is of no significance.' As a Mac user I find this an intriguing article in light of the Sasser Worm and its recent variants." Despite the article's assertions, no evidence of widespread security problems, or lack of effort to solve them, is offered. The only real question is Apple's lack of communication with the public in the nature of the problems.

Comments

Re:Surprisingly unbiased article summary

[John Starks]

I would assert that Slashdot is actually being MORE biased here by being selectively "unbiased." Microsoft gets irrational crap about everything, while Apple gets rational behavior? That hardly seems unbiased. I would much prefer equal journalistic integrity across the board.

Re:OSX security holes

[Orion Blastar]

Ah another Overzealous Apple fan.

I've always found OSX to be behind on the BSD Unix updates, like they are using older code or something. Plus not all of OSX is based on BSD Unix, just parts of it. The GUI, for example is not. Why do you have the fictatious notion that OSX is 100% BSD code in everything that is OSX? If that were the case, Darwin would be a lot more finished than it already is and would be very much like OSX in look and feel and the applications it runs.

Open ports do not matter if someone has an exploit for the ports that OSX leaves open. All one needs is a trojan to run that can open up the other ports. Of course now you might say a silly thing like no trojans exist for OSX, they only exist for Windows. ;)

Last XP install I was given the option to use the built in firewall to restrict access to my system while it is on the Internet. It is called TCP/IP filtering. I usually use a software firewall for that, like SPF, behind a hardware firewall like a DSL router. Of course, malware can get around a firewall and closed ports, as I described before.

Perhaps you did not read the article that was listed here? Apple does not seem to care about the security issues very much. Apple apparently is doing a half-hearted job of fixing them. So it does not matter if they release security fixes every month, if they are not seriously fixing the holes in a timely manner, that are so big, you could drive a Semi through them.

Since you must not have read the article in question, let me quote a paragraph for you:
"In other words, it makes Microsoft's current Sasser problems look no more than a nasty nip. The difference of course is that Windows is the vast majority of the market and Macs account for only three percent of operating systems. There isn't a worm exploiting the holes as yet but the company is strongly advising users to download and install the patches as the OS looks like an easy target at the moment."

Apparently the only difference between the Sasser exploit and the one OSX has, is that there is no known worm exploiting OSX yet.

Also:

"Apple's half-hearted effort to these holes can be found here. While Secunia's full rundown on the problems can be found here.

Is Apple being complacent about its security? Or have the security vendors got it wrong? Is the fact there isn't a worm an indication that this is blown out of proportion? Or is it just a matter of time? Make your opinion known on the discussion board."

Pray tell, I wonder how many more of these holes there are?

Re:Reasons why...

[hesiod]

> what the fuck is "skipt"?

I guess Hukt Awn Fonix doesn't work for you.