Symantec: Mac OS X Becoming a Malware Target

tb3 writes "According to ZDNet 'Security vendor Symantec is warning that Apple's OS X operating system is increasingly becoming a target for hackers and malware authors.' They go on to warn that the only thing that's protected Apple users from exploits so far has been the small number of Macs on the net. Now that people are buying Apple products for 'style over function,' according to one analyst, Apple computer has become a target for new attacks. More coverage on Australian IT and Silicon.com. I guess sales of Norton Anti-Virus for Mac needed a boost." Symantec may well be right about this, but note that they also have the world's biggest vested interest in making Mac owners nervous enough to buy their anti-virus products.

Comments

Style over function?

[sgant]

Why does it have to be one or the other? From what I've found in OSX is that it can have style AND function.

Is that so wrong?

Re:Style over function?

[jav1231]

I think he meant "style over malfunction."

Re:Style over function?

[gitana]

Of course not.

The OS X platform is built on solid unix programing. The eye candy is just the sparkly coating. Properly implemented OS X can be quite secure. Although, you might be able to say the same thing about any modern os(yes even windows.)

Re:Style over function?

[Too Much Noise]

Why does it have to be one or the other?

It does not have to, but inevitably it will for some people.

The by-product is that people are buying these products for form over function. They say it looks pretty and then buy it but don't secure it.

Familiar, eh? it's the typical user buying a machine from Fry's, CompUSA and, now, Apple stores. Meaning Apple is also netting clueless users with its 'switch' campaign. Simply because they were largely confined to Windows so far won't magically change their ways as they move to Macs.

Next, more of this type of users can mean more unsecured machines, hence a more attractive target for hackers. Once hackers move in (and they will, what with macs becoming cheaper and all) security of OSX will really begin to get tested.

Re:Style over function?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading all the comments below, this story is getting flooded with fanboys trying to dismiss an article which has a genuine point, by using any dirty means necessary - kind of like what happened here.

Sorry kids, but don't you think that there's a possibility that an OS which is designed to be easy to use (ie for the computer illiterate) AND is growing in popularity is going to be a target for malware/viruses?

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Re:Style over function?

[Elwood P Dowd]

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

&c.

Re:Style over function?

[wealthychef]

I agree this will be a good test of the out-of-the-box security of Apple. Actually, I believe that out of the box, Apples are ironclad secure. They start with no services turned on by default. There are no Microsoft-like ActiveX analogous components that allow viruses to replicate if you do something innocuous-sounding like read email or run a word-processor. About the only service that is password-free is Software Update, but that is a client, not a server. If users turn on sshd and choose a poor password, they may well be attacked. This will probably rarely happen, since most people enabling ssh will be aware of the risks of poor passwords, and not really complain if attacked. I think this is just FUD for marketing.

Re:Style over function?

[prockcore]

There are no Microsoft-like ActiveX analogous components that allow viruses to replicate if you do something innocuous-sounding like read email or run a word-processor.

You mean *besides* the buffer overflows found in quicktime?

Re:Style over function?

[wealthychef]

I didn't say there were no _potential_ bugs or vulnerabilities in the system. I just think (and this is not a contradiction) that the system is very secure out of the box.

Try this experiment: install OS X and connect to the Internet. Leave it connected for a week. Now install Windows and connect to the Internet. Leave it connected for 30 minutes. Which one will be hacked? My point is that Windows needs special steps to be _protected_; Mac OS X requires special hacking and other circumstances to become _vulnerable_. The QuickTime ruse you refer to no doubt requires some social engineering to make work... that's just a guess on my part. Am I right?

Furthermore, the buffer overflows in quicktime do not afford an attacker root priviledges, do they? And when vulnerabilities are found, Apple, unlike Microsoft, so far anyway, has a great record of fixing them immediately. Apple has a great record on security in OS X. You are not going to see a flood of crippling, disabling OS X attacks like you see every couple of months with Windows viruses that take out our whole email system at work from time to time. Hacking an OS X box is HARD.

Re:Style over function?

[GFLPraxis]

You know what I find amusing? "Mac OS X is becoming a malware target! There are no viruses yet, but there will be some!"

Re:Style over function?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, merely visiting a website with a malformed quicktime file will do it. At least with OS X and most modern Linux distributions you can connect a newly installed system the internet without a firewall and download patches. It used to be that in Windows 2000 you could set required services (servers) like DCOM and RPC to listen on localhost only but that feature was removed from XP so the only way to prevent DCOM or RPC from binding to interfaces connected to the internet is a software firewall. Completely disabling bind_interfaces_only functionality in XP was dumb even by Microsoft standards.

Re:Style over function?

[pyrrhonist]

Try this experiment: install OS X and connect to the Internet. Leave it connected for a week. Now install Windows and connect to the Internet. Leave it connected for 30 minutes. Which one will be hacked?

Neither (except if you're dumb enough to not have installed Windows XP SP2)

Windows XP SP1 with the for-free ZoneAlarm firewall, however, as well as Windows XP SP2, fared much better. Although both configurations were probed by attackers, neither was compromised during the two weeks.

My point is that Windows needs special steps to be _protected_;

Actually, in SP2 it doesn't. The XP firewall is turned on by default in XP2. In SP1, all you needed to do was turn on the firewall for a connection in the Network Connections control panel.

Now as far as local security goes, I agree with you; there are some nasty local security exploits. Microsoft is to blame for much of the security issues, but also a major part of the problem is third-party developers! It would help if application developers would realize that Windows is a multi-user system and actually follow Microsoft's reference guides for how to program in this environment instead of forcing the user to be an Administrator to actually use their program. Windows has been multi-user for years, and application developers still haven't caught up. Why do I have to be an Administrator to run a game? Bad programming, that's why! Not even Norton AV gets this right (scheduled scans do not run for non-administrators and a non-administrators are told that Live Update is off even if it is actually turned on). The only program that I've see actually try to do something about this is Nero, which has a program to set up a group to enable burning by non-administrator accounts, but even this is a special download that is not part of the regular install. This needs to change; developers need to start using the Windows multi-user environment correctly.

In summary, Microsoft provided the ability to make the system more secure using non-privileged accounts and groups like every other major OS, but application developers are not taking advantage of it. I always run as a non-privileged user, and I am getting sick of applications that have no reason to need administrator privileges not running correctly.

Re:Style over function?

[maxspivak]

There are at least two ways of getting a system infected: automatically and with user intervention.

A system may become infected 'automatically' when an external attack exploits a hole in the box's current configuration.

I got hit with a script-kiddy's sendmail exploit in an underpatched Linux box back in '97. Yes, it was my fault for not patching the system correctly. However, a properly locked down system, one with all necessary patches installed, is going to be *fairly* impervious to this type of attack.

Mac OS X gets kudos for being secure out of the box (though Apple should enable firewall by default). Linux has generally been there for a while now. Windows is slowly getting there.

Part 2 of avoiding 'automatic' exploits is being able to keep a system up to date. This is important and requires some user intervention on *all* OS's. The user *must* allow the OS to keep itself up to date. If not, newly-found holes will be left unplugged and potentially exploited in the future.

<aside> How many of these holes will be found depends on the underlying design of the OS. The worse its initial design with respect to security the more holes will be found. In its current state, Linux and OS X are more *inherently* secure than Windows. This is akin to Java being more secure than Active X -- Java was designed with security in mind, and very few security vulnerabilities were ever found. Active X has a security model of a sieve, and its terrible security history speaks for itself. </aside>

The second way a system can become infected is via user intervention. This is commonly called 'Social Engineering' and goes something like this: "Hey user, install this cool piece of software for neat feature X, Y, Z". So user installs the package, which includes malware, adware, opens a port from inside the system and communicates with it's mothership, etc. I don't see whey the Mac is inherently more secure to this type of an attack. In my one week's using a new Mini, I think this kind of an attack can succeed -- the user would even type the admin password to install the bad piece of software. Now, the malware on OS X & Linux wouldn't be able to overwrite critical system files (wouldn't have filesystem permissions) as it would on XP, but it could still cause enough havoc.

What worries me more is that Mac users, thinking that they're impervious to any attacks, wouldn't think twice about installing some random software on their invulnerable mac. They're not paranoid enough, and some paranoia is not a bad thing. :)

All in all, I welcome additional users into the Mac camp, even if it brings more risk with it.

Re:Style over function?

[flyingsquid]

Yes, but OS X has the most stylish viruses and malware around!

Re:Style over function?

[TMacPhail]

My point is that Windows needs special steps to be _protected_;

Actually, in SP2 it doesn't.

I'd say installing SP2 is a special step on it's own.

Re:Style over function?

[Urgoll]

In summary, Microsoft provided the ability to make the system more secure using non-privileged accounts and groups like every other major OS, but application developers are not taking advantage of it

You do realize that Microsoft, if they were serious about security, could have fixed that with the release of Windows XP. For some reason, most application publishers want the 'designed for Windows XP' sticker, logo or whatever. To get this, they're supposed to follow the guidelines of the program setup by Microsoft. For some unknown reason, Microsoft has never asked that the programs be well-behaved in multi-user, non-administrator environment. So developpers don't care (path of least resistance).

In most cases, fixing the issues are simply to store preference files in the right place (user's directory, user's registry).

Re:Style over function?

[Moofie]

No, I DON'T think that its "stylishness" has anything whatsoever to do with its susceptibility to malware.

Once there are some actual exploits in the wild that we can examine and dissect, my conclusion will remain.

Oh, wait, what's this? There aren't any? Ah. OK then.

Re:Style over function?

[Darby]

Windows has been multi-user for years,

Well, they have advertized themselves as such for years.
Tell me this, though.
How do you build a windows service (that's a daemon for you unix folks but it needs to be specifically built and installed to work properly), have it run as an unprivileged user (i.e. *not* the system account) and have it start when the system boots *without* the user it is supposed to run as logging in at the console?

If it's possible, then it is *very* fucking new.

Re:Style over function?

[CodeBuster]

I manage a group of offshore foreign software engineers and they will use VBScript to run FTP with the shared directory mapped to the root of the C drive using the domain administrator account over the Internet. I have tried to explain to them why this is not a good idea, but their argument is always, "We haven't had any [security] problems yet...if you don't like it then rewrite it [the software] yourself." One step that Microsoft is taking is to require Certified Partners to adhere to the best practices, which include not requiring root privileges to run the software (unless of course the program is an OS service or other administrative related application that requires root by definition). You are right though, plenty of developers are ignoring these best practices. However, there will come a day, and the day is fast approaching, when no serious company will be able to sell their Windows software if they do not get it certified and signed with a code-signing certificate. So at least in that regard the trusted computing initiative may be a good thing.

Re:Style over function?

[pyrrhonist]

How do you build a windows service (that's a daemon for you unix folks but it needs to be specifically built and installed to work properly), have it run as an unprivileged user (i.e. *not* the system account) and have it start when the system boots *without* the user it is supposed to run as logging in at the console?

1. Open "Computer Management".
2. Double-click on "Users".
3. Select "New User..." from the "Action" menu.
4. Type in the user's information.
5. Select the "Password never expires" checkbox.
6. Click "Create" and then click "Close".
7. Right-click on the user.
8. Click on the "Member Of" tab.
9. Click on the "Add" button.
10. Enter a name of a group you need to run the service.
11. Click "OK".
12. Repeat 9-11 for each group you need to add.
13. Click "OK".
14. Open "Local Security Settings".
15. Double-click on "Local Policies".
16. Double-click on "User Rights Assignment".
17. Right-click on a right that you need to run your service and select "Properties".
18. Click on "Add User or Group".
19. Enter the name of your new user and click "OK".
20. Repeat 17-19 for each right you need.
21. Repeat 17-19 for the "Log on as a service" right.
22. Open "Computer Management" again.
23. Double-click on "Services"
24. Right-click on the service and select "Properties".
25. Click the "Log On" tab.
26. Select the "This account" radio button.
27. Enter the username and password.
28. Click on the "General" tab.
29. In the "Startup type" select box, select "Automatic".
30. Click the "Start" button.
31. Click "OK".
32. ???
33. Profit!

If it's possible, then it is *very* fucking new.

It's been there since Windows NT, although the configuration was different in NT.

Re:Style over function?

[Sparks23]

In summary, Microsoft provided the ability to make the system more secure using non-privileged accounts and groups like every other major OS, but application developers are not taking advantage of it. I always run as a non-privileged user, and I am getting sick of applications that have no reason to need administrator privileges not running correctly.

Good assessment. I'd elaborate by adding that the /reason/ people don't program things to do non-administrator (or multi-user) stuff properly is because of legacy stuff, alas.

Let's say you're writing a program. You write it under Win95. Time goes on, Win98 comes out, then WinME, and finally XP. Now, with XP, you can do multi-user stuff... but by now you have a codebase you don't want to have to go back and rewrite all of. Or even with more recent programs, people complain that they want it to run on Win95, or 98, because they don't want to upgrade to XP.

It's really a pain to write something to do everything properly NT-ish/XP-ish multi-user /and/ run on single-user Win9x as well.

Whether or not Mac OS X is inherently 'better,' they picked up a bit of a benefit by the 'throw out the old system and start over with OS X' tactic. By basically creating an entirely different operating system, people really had to redesign their apps for it. Huge investment in time and energy... but as long as they're rewriting their apps anyway, they can rewrite them properly for a multi-user environment.

(Disclaimer: While I write Windows software for a living, Mac OS X software for a hobby, and use both, the Mac is my machine of choice for casual browsing and productivity.)

As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[snuf23]

Can someone out there tell me what the reality of the situation is? Do you really need anti-virus for OS X? In the research I've done I can't seem to find any references to real (as in active in the wild) OS X viruses.
We will be transitioning about 8 production Macs to OS X later this year, and I am wondering whether I need to concerned at this point. It doesn't seem like I do.
I also understand the possibility of exploits in some of the open source code used in OS X. I assume you deal with this the same as on any other OSes and patch it when the fix comes out.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[mekkab]

You can "rootkit" BSD boxes. Though from here its a bit more than just BSD... sort of a mix.

Poorly administered servers can get trashed. If your root password is "r00t", it won't take long for someone to figure it out.

You need to be concerened only insofar as you need to have a network admin (or something to that affect). How do you know when your network is being attacked? How do you know what attacks are being tried? If you aren't analyzing your network thats the worst mistake anyone can make.

That being said, there is this virus, its called "rm -rf *", its really bad.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[SmoothriderSean]

In my experience (as support staff for the Humanities Div of a university), far and away the most common virus issue with Macs is that they can be a carrier for Word macro viruses. Beyond that, you just have to keep an eye on users turning on services without knowing what they're doing (or using decent passwords). On the one hand, it's better to be safe than sorry, and just install an anti-virus package, but frankly, the need has been so slight that mac AV packages tend to be a mess.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[littlerubberfeet]

I admin a sound studio with 10 macs and two windows machines. Nine run X.3 and one runs 9.2.2. The two windows machines run GigaStudio and are never, and will never be connected to the internet. I run antivirus software on the macs connected to the internet, and nothing has ever come up in a scan. Ever. I have run every single single version of X since 10.2.1 and they all stayed clean.

As for patching, I patch manually, because of quirks in all the audio software we run, but OS X will patch automatically if you set it up to. you will be manually installing patches for any apps not distributed by apple, but all of Apple's stuff will update automatically.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[jericho4.0]

The reality is, this article is FUD.

Update reguarly/automaticly, and keep an eye on an OS X site or two to stay abreast of things, and you'll be fine.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

As an IT person, you should already know the answer to this ;-)

Yes, Mac OSX has historically had very few problems with viruses or exploits. However it only takes one ;-) And in my experience when that one hits users/bosses aren't very understanding to "I didn't even realize there was anything to worry about." as an answer from IT about why they weren't protected. If there is a SUPER tight budget, yes you can probably get away without it, but I NEVER would. If for no other reason than to CYA. We only have a few OSX computers in the network, but they are all protected. The price of the Macs VS price of some basic anti-virus its really not much of an issue better to spend the extra few bucks than be sorry ;-)

Here is a decent summary of OSX historical vulnerabilities (there are still a couple unfixed ones out there).

http://secunia.com/product/96/

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

It's limited to administrators. If you have administrator rights on OS X, you effectively have root anyway; it's just that it's shielded power: you need to take deliberate action to access it, rather than it being at your fingertips. Sort of the difference between an empty pistol with ammo in your pocket, and a loaded and cocked pistol.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[Sycraft-fu]

At this point I'd say not to worry, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of viruses. The only real function would be to catch Windows viruses so you are an unwitting carrier, but then that can just be done on the Windows systems.

It sounds like spyware is the problem that is going to be the more immediate concern. Initally, there should be little enough of it that you can just shitlist it, but once the door is open I expect they'll be a flood of it since scammers just never seem to give up.

The real solution for that is just user education. Teach them not to install crap (I know, easier said than done). Make sure they don't think they are invincible just because they are now on a Mac. A distrubing trend I see with many Mac converts is they believe themselves to be invincible to malware/viruses/exploits/etc. Well that mindset will lead to crap getting on the systems when it comes out.

So while I'd keep an eye on the OS-X virus situation, I wouldn't worry about software at this point. Worry more about malware and teaching users to stay away from it.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[davidstrauss]

but last time I checked, an out-of-the-box Windows box is owned minutes after connecting to the network

Last I checked, out of the box machines come with SP2, which fixes most such vulnerabilities, and have a firewall enabled by default. In addition, the latest desktop and server versions of Windows come with very few services enabled by default. It's also been a LONG time since any Microsoft email program ran worms without user interaction. And finally, if you take security so seriously, why don't you filter viruses in messages on your mail server, patch your mail clients, install client-side virus scanners, or TRAIN your users?

IE sucks for security, but that doesn't seem to be part of your argument. Please play again later.

Re:As an IT person who is deploying OS X

[NoodleSlayer]

Its possible to set up a root password using the NetInfo config utility, which unlocks 'su' on a OS X Client machine, OS X Server comes with 'su' unlocked by default. Log in as root from the log in screen is still disabled after unlocking 'su' though I believe.

As for sudo, its this simple, don't let people log in as admin if you're worried about security. If you are the type that knows how to use sudo, odds are you know enough to keep yourself from fubaring the system anyways, and even if you do, reinstall isn't that hard.

Besides, you're perfectly capable of doing most things you need to from a regular account. The point of admin level access isn't to make the machine 100% secure, its to have cursory security from the users to make sure that they can't easily delete their system folder, or anything of the sort.

Sounds to me like Symantec's trying to push their

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac products out the door again. I guess with Apple projected to take 5% of the market share they decided maybe it would a good idea if they actually started pushing Mac products.

Security through obscurity?

[LukaFox]

Is it really true that the only thing protecting Macs thus far has been their smaller by comparison presence on the Internet? Is there nothing to be said for the inherent security or insecurity of a particular platform? This is the kind of argument that free operating systems get against their security all the time. It'll be interesting to see whether the Mac platform can stand up to increased attacks. If it does, this might help convince people that some platforms really are more secure than others.

Call me anal..

[Paska]

..but I already use an Antivirus for my Mac. Mind you I switched over from Windows a little under 1 year ago and since I use these machines for work I really didn't want to risk, even if it's 0.0001% of getting my work machine infected by a virus. All it could take is one sneaky website I visit to infect me, record information and I honestly wouldn't really know - mind you I doubt the Antivirus updaters would know about any Mac virus within 1 week of being lanched.

And no, I use McAfee. And it's not too bad, but then again I am biased as we bundle McAfee with systems.

Re:Call me anal..

[Hungus]

Hey, I have a product I have developed that stops all known chartreuse buzzards from stealing your cheese if you send me 50 bucks I will letr you use it. (I mean since you are using a product that detects all known viruses on OS X you must be interested in using my product too right?)

Portability

[khromatikos]

That's great!

Once they have it for OSX it must be fairly easy to port it to FreeBSD. I guess they might have to add a new category in the ports: /usr/ports/malware

long time listener... first time caller

[wahsapa]

I have been using Mac's for 8+ years now, I even orderd my Cube on a Dreamcast, and have never had a virus or malware... so you can put me in the "believe it when i see it" catagory.

Infidel!

[Faust7]

Is that so wrong?

Yes. Now, back to the bash prompt with you, heathen, and may the glistening tentacles of Aqua and Luna never intrude upon your conscience again!

(I kid, I kid. Luna doesn't glisten.)

Re:Infidel!

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

... God rest his soul.

Re:Infidel!

[Jord]

Not any more. It was changed in Panther I believe. The default is now bash

The only reason Windows is exploitable...

[hereschenes]

From the article:

"The only reason Windows has had mass exploits written for it is the sheer number of connected devices that are present on most networks."

It's a reason for sure, but the only reason? I think not!

How useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Symantec Anti-Virus OSX Version 1.0:

Please upgrade to signature file 032105.sgn, your current version only detects 3 viruses, however the new signature file finds and cleans 5 different viruses.

Vested Interest up the Wazoo

[Skippy_kangaroo]

Yes, Symantec have a vested interest up the wazoo for that press release. The interesting thing is, the only virus definitions I have ever seen in their Mac OS X updates are MS Word macro viruses and the like. If there really was a threat it doesn't look like Symantec will be providing the protection.

Maybe Symantec is trying to draw attention to generate more business for themselves because there certainly haven't been any viruses released yet on OS X that Symantec provides any real protection for - so I wonder, what information could they be basing their statement on? Secret contacts with the hacker community? Certainly nothing public...

The protection will come from such sexily named files as Security Update 2005-002 and Security Update 2005-003 distributed courtesy of Apple Inc.

Services are turned off by default...

[Philippe]

On MacOSX, most (all?) network services such as ftp, sshd, httpd... are turned off by default. And automatic software update (prompting the user) is on by default. That, coupled with a better security model from the ground up will ensure that the MacOS never becomes the trojan-infected mess that Windows has become.

Methinks that Symantec is propagating FUD to drum up sales...

let's see!!!

[netdur]

a small program that
1) fool web browser to download without user notice
2) chmod itself ---x--x--x
3) excute itself!!!

I don't think that is possible at *nix systems

Yes it is...

[Anonymous Coward]

It will upset the frothing Linux zealots who keep insisting you cant have both - thats their excuse for liking a GUI (doesnt matter which - Gnome / KDE - take your pick) that is less intuitive to use than even Win95

Re:Yes it is...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The one thing that bothers me about KDE is the fact that every application's name begins with a "K""

Ive always wanted to make some software named something like "Usable Network Toolkit" and have it added to KDE - just to see if they persist with the K prefix ;)

Re:Yes it is...

[aichpvee]

iLife, iMovie, iTunes, iPod, iMac... iKnow I'm forgetting a lot of them...

Re:Yes it is...

[jessecurry]

I never said that the "i" didn't bother me either, but it's slightly less annoying(at least to me) because you get an idea of what the application does from its name.
Looking at names such as Krusader doesn't help me to know what the application does. The same goes for kdissert, kdar, Krita, Kate, KLibido, knoda, Konstruct, KlamAV, etc... basically what I'm getting at is that the prepended K seems to make developers try to come up with Kreative names for their applications rather than informative ones.
About the only applications that I am familiar with that have descriptive names are KMyFirewall and KText. I'm sure that there are plenty of others with descriptive names, but the vast majority of Kapplications seem to be named simply for the K.

Viruses and Word

[mr.dreadful]

The only real issue I have with OS X and viruses is with MCSFT Word macro viruses. Its worth having something that can sort those bad boys out because they can be spread to other users. I have one user who is constantly propagating macro-viruses, but I think I found the solution.

I'm moving him to Apple's Pages software.

Seems to handle doc files just fine, and no macro issues.

Re:Hypotheticals....Hypotheticals

[Knobby]

The WORST you could do is trash your user environment. NOT the OS.

Who cares about the OS? The OS can be reinstalled in about an hour. I have 40GB stored in my user environment. It gets backed up every day, but a virus, worm, or trojan that wiped out the user environment could cost me a days work without too much trouble. That's a much larger concern to me.

FUD.

[sakusha]

There may have been 37 alleged vulnerabilities identified in MacOS X, but there have been ZERO exploits of those vulnerabilities. Apple has often released patches within 48 hours of discovery of a vulnerability.

At the current time, there are NO known exploits for MacOS X. NONE.

What a crock of Shit!

[ravenspear]

Anyone who has been a Mac user for any length of time and has used Symantec products can testify to the horrid filthy mutilated piece of code that is a Symantec product on the Mac.

This is NOT A TROLL.

I have seen (and experienced myself) Symantec products CAUSE more problems than they fix (if they are even successful at fixing any) on the Mac platform.

I pity the poor soul who has no experience with Symantec on the Mac and falls for this pathetic ad piece.

Re:What a crock of Shit!

[drinkypoo]

Anyone who has used any Symantec product for any length of time can testify to that, on ANY platform. Symantec antivirus is crap. I have a license for it and I actually switched to AVG free because it was less of a bitch. For one thing, the autoupdater actually works.

Re:Safari runs like crap

[chromaphobic]

First off, check and make sure popup blocking is enabled. I only see MAYBE one popunder a week, if that (and add the offending site to my mental blacklist, never to be visited again.) Go to the Safari menu and make sure there's a check next to the "Block Pop-Up Windows" item.

Secondly, yes, Konfabulator can really bog down a system if you have too many widgets running. They eat up memory and CPU power, even sitting idle. I have seven I keep open with little peformance imapct, but that's on a Dual 2Ghz G5. If you haven't discovered it yet, Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities/) can be very useful in tracking down where your CPU cycles and memory are going. It even lists all the Konfab widgets seperately, though it doesn't tell you which one is which. So if there's a widget that's being a hog, it'll let you know!

I'd bet that it's a low memory issue, Apple has a tendency to shortchange the memory in their systems, especially consumer level stuff like the iBook & iMac. Running OS X on less that 512MB will bring things to a snail's pace frequently, so a simple memory upgrade might help greatly.

Re:Security through obscurity is not permanent.

[zulux]

It can safely be said that the amount of resources being expended to identify and cure OS X vulnerabilities is at least somewhat smaller than those used for Windows, in rough proportion to OS X's much smaller market share.

MORE effort is being spent to fix OS X than Windows - in proportion to market share.

OS X gets fixes from Apple.....

And FreeBSD.
And OpenSSH
And Samba
And Kerberos.
And Mach Developers.
And KHTML/KDE Developers.
And GCC Developers (stack protection,etc)

Plus a bunch more that I'm missing

Windows is unique

[Sloppy]

The only reason Windows has had mass exploits written for it is the sheer number of connected devices that are present on most networks.

I gotta call bullshit on that.

Quite simply, Microsoft's operating systems and applications are unique within the industry -- no, not just the industry, but almost unique in post-1989 history itself -- in the careless way they treat data as code. Nobody else would have deployed ActiveX, or deliberately made executing a mail attachment as easy as clicking on it.

I can believe MacOS (or any other platform) has its share of bugs that can be exploited, but you just can't find anything as dangerous-by-design as Windows. Windows will always (even as its marketshare fades) be a comparatively unsafe platform, relative to what is normal. It's not just about code quality, it's about amazingly dumb ideas, combined with business practices that resulted in a situation where users' happiness is not a significant market force.

And of course, there's the obvious counter-example: where are all the BIND and Apache worms? Talk about "sheer number of devices"!

The real statistics for Symantec

[PepeGSay]

10 years on the Internet, 24x7 for eight of those years. No antivirus. Not a single infection....

I do install one copy every few years to verify this personal protest against virus company scare tactics

Re:style over function

[carpe_noctem]

I said the same thing about my ex before she gave me herpes. =(

Macs are secure but not invulnerable

[goombah99]

for the past 20 years, having a virus checker was useless on a mac and only served to avoid passing along pc viruses. At one brief point you could get word macro viruses.

If someone can get root on a mac you can install a root kit. But youhave to get root first. It's not good enough just to get user level or even admin user level. You have to get the admin user to enter their password to elevate to root.

The ppc played role too as I have read that until last year there was no widely know compact way to exploit a buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code. I beleive that is now solved and published so one might see these cropping up. :-(

Since the security model is better you dont have problems like active-X waiting to ruin your day, or auto execute on mous-over e-mail subject lines, or registry changes needed to install applications. Or other bonkers stuff.

But despite all the default security, nothing will stop a determined used from trojaning themselves good and hard. And if they are admin and enter their password your rooted. Nothing will withstand unrestricted physical access either. You can at least ward off limited physical access by using the firmware password but this can be overridden by a determined user.

and of course there have been security holes and always will be. SSH, quick time, and even JAVA had had security holes. Fortunately no one has manged to exploit these before apple fixed them and given apples default services-off settings and lack of root access, its going to be harder for these things to spread like wild fire.

on the other hand Macs are very homogenous so once a virus does finally break loose, if it can get in without requiring any services its going to spread quickly.

Re:Macs are secure but not invulnerable

[phillymjs]

for the past 20 years, having a virus checker was useless on a mac and only served to avoid passing along pc viruses.

Not true. In the olden days, there were a handful of Mac (Classic Mac OS) viruses. Some of them were even malicious, though those were extremely rare. The only ones I ever personally saw were benign, and easily eradicated by simply rebuilding the desktop file on the infected floppy.

From 1989 and well into the 90s (possibly even until 1998 when it was discontinued), the most popular Mac antivirus software was Disinfectant, a free utility written and maintained by one guy-- so that should tell you the non-severity of the Mac virus problem even then. The developer threw in the towel when cross-platform Word macro viruses hit the scene and quickly became too numerous to keep up with.

Since the time of Mac OS 8 or 9 until the present, however, I would agree with your sentiment that the only reason to use Mac antivirus software is as a courtesy to Windows users with whom you exchange files.

~Philly

Mac Os9 has never once been exploited remotely !

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite many high profile web sites and servers using OS9 for many years, not one database entry in the large BugTraq database documents a remote explloit for Mac OS in the history of the internet.

Even the US Army used macs exclusively (mostly MacOS 9 until recently) after being rooted rouitinely using unix and MS Windows NT. For many many years www.army.mil has been run on macintoshes exclusively.

The same is true of many colleges that were rooted and defaced too often on Linux. They installed WebStar and OS 9 and never had to worry again.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.ar my .mil

http://www.google.com/search?q=army+webstar+"os- 9"

Check it out yourself. This entire post is full of factual citations and 100% facts.

No mac in the history of the internet hosting a web server has ever been rooted or defaced remotely.

Why?

Because not one version of Mac OS has ever had a single exploitable hole ever discovered. (classic mac os now up to version 9.2.2 on currenlty sold g4 towers). OpenBSD has had no less than 5 holes (not one) in the default install in the last two years. Mac OS has had ZERO in over 8 years, even when paired up with its preferred web server app.

In fact in the entire SecurityFocus (BugTraq) database history there has never been a Mac exploited over the internet remotely. Scan it yourself.

That is why the US Army gave up on MS IIS and got a Mac for a web serve. Currently it is a honeypot for OSX testing, and US Army use regular Mac OS on other internal servers

This post is not talking about FreeBSD derived MacOS X (which already had a more than a 50 exploits and potential exploits in BugTraq database, and in the news yesterday with Symantec claiming in March 2005 of OSX having remote exploits) I am talking about current Mac OS 9.x and earlier which are highly sophisticated abstract-OS models.

Why is is hack proof? These reasons :

1> No command shell. No shell means no way to hook or intercept the flow of control with many various shell oriented tricks found in Unix or NT. Apple uses an object model for procces to process communication that is heavily typed and "pipe-less"

2> No Root user. All mac developers know their code is always running at root. Nothing is higher (except undocumented microkernel stufff where you pass Gary Davidian's birthday into certain registers and make a special call). By always being root there is no false sense of security, and programming is done carefully.

3> Pascal strings. ANSI C Strings are the number one way people exploit Linux and Wintel boxes. The mac avoids C strings historically in most of all of its OS. In fact even its roms originally used Pascal strings. As you know pascal strings are faster than C (because they have the length delimiter in the front and do not have to endlessly hunt for NULL), but the side effect is less buffer exploits. Individual 3rd party products may use C stings and bind to ANSI libraries, but many do not. In case you are not aware of what a "pascal string" is, it usually has no null byte terminator. Additionally certain types of compilers can check range on assignments to prevent out of bounds. Furthermore many good programmers ensure that the bounds are not overwritten.

4> Macs running Webstar have ability to only run CGI placed in correct directory location and correctly file "typed" (not mere file name extension). File types on Macs are not easily settable by users, expecially remotely. Apache as you know has had many problems in earlier years preventing wayward execution.

5> Macs never run code ever merely based on how a file is named. ".exe" suffixes mean nothing, nor are there lame single 'x' executable bits! For example the file type is 4 characters of user-invisible attributes, along with many other invisible attributes, but these 4 bytes cannot be set by most tool oriented utilities that work with dat

use ClamXav (free virii scanner for OSX)

[bad_outlook]

Use Clam, I run ClamAV on my linux server, but they have a OS X client (GUI) out now: ClamXav is a free virus checker for Mac OS X. It uses a slightly modified version of the tried, tested, and very popular clamav open source antivirus engine as a back-end.

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/ClamXav.sht ml

bo

it's not market share!

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole market share angle is mostly bogus. There is what, about 10 million OS X users? Why hasn't there been a worm (or trojan, anything!) attacking them? Witty has a very successful worm: it hit all 12,000 vulnerable hosts.

How can you say 10 million is too small? The population of Canada (where I live) is about 33 million. The installed OS X based is then (about) 1/3 the population of Canada. That's not far from the population of New York city (~15M).

If a worm can hit only 12,000 hosts like Witty did and be called "successful" (it was basically a 100% infection rate), then surely the OS X population is vulnerable.

John Gruber has some articles on this.

uh oh

[Heisenbug]

I try sticking to the bash prompt, but I keep seeing Safari through the translucent Terminal window and coming back to check Slashdot.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

In teh case of malware?

[Sycraft-fu]

Yes, obsucrity is absolutly he only reason it hasn't been targeted. Remember malware comes in the front door, not the back one. It either piggybacks on an app you want, or simply is an app you want. Well you can't secure against that, OSes don't know by magic which apps are good and which are bad. If you have permissions to install apps, you can install ones that fuck the system up.

That's different than exploits, which rely on finding bugs in code. If the code has less bugs and/or less services where one could try to find them, it is more secure.

However, there's basically nothing you can do about malware other than make scanners for it and try to educate users. Without some kind of trusted computing, signed application deal, there's no way you can make an OS that only allows users to install safe apps, since there's no way to know what is and isn't safe.

Hell some people don't even care about spyware, they want their dumb little free screensaver or whatever and don't care if it spys on them. You can tell them it's bad and they'll just ignore you.

Re:"But it's a Mac..."

[rokzy]

I don't get it? did anything bad happen to the Mac? what you're saying is that using non-Mac products can get you owned?

yes setting up a wireless network was maybe a bit stupid given such poor company security, but with that kind of bad IT administration something was bound to happen sooner or later.

also, look at how many Windows users don't think they need to understand security (the Windows box said is was more secure than ever!).

the moral here is that YOUR COMPANY SYSTEMS SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BE SECURE in the first place so even the most retarded employee can't fuck everything up.

I hope you took the hint and moved everyone to Mac/linux. no? "fool me once, shame on you..."

This is still just FUD

[argent]

The only exploit they point to is a rootkit... which is something you install *after* you've exploited the box... there are no active threats that any antivirus software will work aaginst.

This is like their attempt to talk up a manually-installed program that deleted all your files on the Palm as an exploit, to push their useless PalmOS antivirus. And then their Pocket PC antivirus actually caused people data loss from false alarms.

Until there's an active threat in the wild, AND it's been analysed and an identifying signature discovered, antivirus software's only result is to make your computer less stable and less reliable because of its deep hooks in the OS.

This is not to say that the OS is magically perfectly secure, but anything any AV company tells you about ANY platform but Windows, at the moment, should be taken with a sackful of salt.

I have Symantec AV Corp 9.03 for OS X

[ellem]

and it kinda sucks. Every now and again (and not when it is scanning) it just takes over all the CPUs attention. So you kill it and then it comes back. So you kill it and then it comes back. So you disable it and this story comes out.

Looks like this is my fault. Sorry.

Re:"But it's a Mac..."

[multiplexo]

You still haven't said anything about the Mac though. The guy set up an unsecured AirPort base station, he's a fucking idiot, this is like plugging a 100 foot CAT 5 cable into an active network jack and then throwing the other end out the window onto a busy street. I've got some news for you sunshine, if he was a PC user and had purchased a Linksys or Netgear WAP you would have had exactly the same problem. Out of the box Linksys gear ships with SSID broadcast on, the admin password set to admin and the SSID name set to Linksys. From what I've heard Netgear isn't any better. This wasn't a Mac problem, it was a networking problem.

Malware Schmalware

[jimfrost]

This is kind of ridiculous. Oh, sure, malware on OS X is possible and perhaps even really growing in numbers. But the problem is not and cannot be anywhere near as severe as Windows because Apple, like all the other UNIX vendors, ships their systems in a (reasonably) secure state by default.

The malware problem on Windows is not primarily the result of the system's popularity, no matter how many times Microsoft claims that is so. Early attacks on the Internet did not target the most popular system; rather, the most attacks have always targetted the easiest systems to crack. That started out with SunOS and, by the mid-90s, was Linux. (If you think Windows has much better penetration that Linux today, just think how much more lopsided the numbers were in 1995-2000 when Linux was the most popular target.) These days Windows systems are easiest by far because at this point they are the only systems which ship without basic filesystem protections (now that it finally has a halfway decent firewall, a mere five years after everyone else).

If Windows had basic filesystem protection enabled by default on all critical filesystem areas, mandated nonprivileged user accounts, and an installer that required a password, suddenly Windows wouldn't get infected every time you sneezed in its general direction.

Maybe the future will prove me wrong but I will be very surprised to find OS X malware become a serious problem no matter how popular the OS gets. I don't suspect that its users are any smarter, but the barriers are a lot higher.

Re:Malware Schmalware

[Sebastopol]

Windows because Apple, like all the other UNIX vendors, ships their systems in a (reasonably) secure state by default.

Really?

I just installed XP Pro and ActiveX was off by default and the firewall was turned on by default. And it yelled at me for not having AV software installed. (F-prot all the way!)

Re:Malware Schmalware

[jimfrost]

So, can you modify files in c:\windows in that XP installation? Yes? Then the system is an open book to anything that can get even a toehold.

WOW

[electricdream]

This is such a deep insightful article! Do I understand it correctly? Here's what I think it says:

A virus proctection and half-ass security company says that as the marketshare of one of the platforms it supports increases so should sales for the products it creates for that platform.

Did I get that correct?

Re:Mac Os9 has never once been exploited remotely

[phillymjs]

Actually, there was an exploit, once.

It was some time ago, and I believe it was the result of a "hack the server, get a prize" type contest.

I'm too lazy to Google it right now but IIRC, the server that was hacked was running the classic Mac OS, WebSTAR, and Lasso, a tool that lets you webify FileMaker databases. There was a vulnerability in Lasso that was used to, per the contest rules, successfully alter the contents of a certain page on the WebSTAR-hosted site.

The prize was awarded, the vulnerability was quickly fixed, and that's the first, last and only time I have ever heard of any server on a classic Mac OS based machine getting hacked.

~Philly

There's several reasons MacOS X is more secure

[jht]

Yes, a major reason it's safer is because OS X isn't targeted often due to the low market presence. But it's also a matter of effort versus payoff. By default, MacOS X has a much smaller attack surface than Windows, and even compared to most "stock" Linux distros. Virtually all server services are turned off by default on the Mac. Root is disabled. So to find a vulnerability and attack it takes a lot of effort, and then if you do so there are fewer Macs to take advantage of. So why not target Windows - it's easier!

I do know of people who've had their MacOS X systems compromised - but only among MacOS X Server users who've turned on services without knowing the implications, and then running them without the benefit of a firewall (because "everyone knows Macs are secure". Through bad setup and misconfiguration it's pretty easy to turn a server into "just another Unix box" that's just as vulnerable as any unpatched Linux server.

But that's not the default, and that's not how the client works. Hence at this time, Symantec is just blowing smoke and wondering why they don't sell any copies of NAV and Systemworks for Mac anymore.

Well that's cool if you've installed SP2 already

[SuperKendall]

SP2 is a lot more secure. But even now lots of people are installing from copies of SP1. Yes Windows can be made secure, but it takes that little bit of extra effort - and if the firewall is ever compromised (like malware turning it off) you are quite screwed. OS X needs no firewall to stay quite happily connected without security issues because it does not ned any services running to function.

Re:More scared people -- more sales

[Ibanez]

You're just joking right? I can't decide whether to respond, mod you down as a troll, or mod you up for being funny.

Seriously, you think the average Apple user is less savvy than a PC user? Most of the graphics artists I know are SIGNIFICANTLY more knowledgable than most PC users...

Blake

Re:More scared people -- more sales

[Bellyflop]

Sure, but most Apple users aren't graphic artists. Apple has home user market penetration too you know. Most mac users are probably people who bought their iMac because they liked how it came in different colors, like my friend. She's not an idiot, but she's definitely not a savvy computer user. She just likes how her Mac looks and doesn't do much but websurf and word process.

Re:More scared people -- more sales

[vwjeff]

Apple fans are the perfect audience. Most are technically non-savvy arty types who are easier to FUD.

I believe general stereotypes are bad but do have an example that fits this.

I work for the local school district as a computer tech. Recently, the art department bought a Powerbook for every art teacher. I got a call last week from an art teacher and said she was having problems installing a program. I told the user I would help her install it.

I get to the computer and ask her where the software is. She said she got it in an email from a friend. The subject was "Spring screensavers for you."

Of course the attachment was a zipped .exe containing a keylogger trojan. If this would have been a Windows box she would have unknowingly attempted to install a trojan. (All of our Windows boxes have AV software centrally managed)

I guess my point here is what if that trojan was coded for a Mac? A multiuser system is pointless if the user knows the admin/root password. (Our users do not have admin access.) In my experience, entering a password is more of an annoyance than a security measure for many users.

Ok, now I'm going off to another story but it is worth reading. A person of importance in the district recently got a new computer with XP Pro. She had previously had a Windows 98 PC and was in a habit to cancel past the Microsoft login. I don't blame her. There is not security there. Her new computer is shared between two people so I made an account for each of them like I do on every new computer. This person did not like the idea of having to type her password in just to get into her computer.

On Friday at 3:45 (work ends at 4:00) I got a call from the user demanding that the password be taken off the computer. She just wanted to turn on her computer and be at the desktop.

I did as she asked but also took the liberty to change her important documents to hidden. I was hoping I would get a call today. I did.

After getting a desperate voicemail for the user, I slowly made my way to her office. There she asked me what had happened to her documents. I played stupid and asked what documents. She said all of her important files were in the My Documents folder on Friday and there are not there anymore. I then came up with some bs about how I would need to recover them because someone must have been using the computer over the weekend and must have deleted them by accident. (Strangely enough there were children in that room over the weekend. Perfect scapegoats.)

I waited for about ten minutes and when she left the room I removed the hidden property from the documents. I then said I could enable the password so no one could get into her computer. She was more than willing.

Was my action unethical? Perhaps. Was it funny? I think so. I'm just happy I got my point across with no damage done.

code and data

[jesterzog]

no, not just the industry, but almost unique in post-1989 history itself -- in the careless way they treat data as code.

I don't disagree with you in general, but could you please clarify what you mean about this more specifically? I realise that separating data and code is a big security thing, but I'm not particularly a security enthusiast beyond what I need to know.

As far as I'm aware, any system that supports scripting languages, Linux included (consider the number of scripts in your typical /usr/bin directory that'll be executed as root one day) is treating code as data and data as code. Things that are definitely executables can easily be kept protected in memory by an operating system, but not everything's obviously an executable.

Is the main difference here just that most scripting interpreters don't offer default access to volatile things like pointers, that might let a script get direct memory access?

Re:As an IT person ... www.ARMY.mil uses mac

[flonker]

Really old post. A quick bit of googling reveals:

http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75257&ci d=6734660 from Aug 19, 2003
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67477&cid=6188 308 from Jun 12, 2003
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.a dvocacy/msg/7a80fe09794d6331 from Jan 12, 2003
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45793&cid=4761 155 from Nov 26, 2002
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37389&cid=4009 006 from Aug 4, 2002

And I seem to recall seeing it floating around long before then. If anyone knows of the original, please respond. Also, if the original troll could please fix the numbering? 4 isn't supposed to repeat again after 5 and before 7, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Mmmm... tentacles.

[Shag]

Let me just tweak com.lovecraft.fhtagn.cthulhu.plist real quick.

Re:More scared people -- more sales

[Weirdsmobile]

Most mac users are probably people who bought their iMac because they liked how it came in different colors, like my friend. And most home PC users bought their computers because they liked the bargain basement prices. I don't know what kind of Windows platform utopia some of the posters in this thread are living in, but have you ever listened to some of the people buying PCs at CompUSA or Best Buy? I don't think fans of either platform can necessarily crow about the superior computer savvy of their users.

Windows software dying art?

[laird]

I started a company a few months ago that's building consumer software that runs on MacOS X and Windows (and Linux, etc., eventually). Our strategy is to build the core in tight C code, and then build platform-specific applications in the appropriate language, so the result is a great ObjC Mac app, a great C++ Windows app, etc. While I like Java, Ruby, etc., our goal is to make the app small and efficient, so asking people to install 30 MB runtimes is out. Interestingly, it was easy to recruit first-class Mac and Java (server) developers, and nearly impossible to recruit a really great Windows developer. It turns out that the best CS students are _all_ working in modern cross-platform environments (e.g. Java, Python, Ruby), most use Mac's, almost none are using C++, and nobody even _considers_ writing Windows applications any more. While this is kinda neat in one respect, it's a bit surreal that the vast majority of great developers won't write software that runs natively for the platform on 95% of desktops. Weird.