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Large Prize Offered For Writing Mac Virus
Mordant writes "Some experienced Mac developers are offering a $25K prize to the first person to successfully infect two 'naked' Internet-connected Macs running stock Apple software. The best part is that if any Symantec employee succeeds in infecting the Macs, the prize goes up to $50K (Symantec has been fanning the flames of totally bogus "Macs aren't more secure, it's just that Windows is a bigger target" technical-equivalence propaganda)!" Update: 03/26 20:24 GMT by Z : Well, that was quick. Jack Campbell has cancelled the contest, after he "...was contacted by a large number of Mac users, and Mac software professionals who shared their thinking with me about the contest."
for days when someone suceeds at this. Never dare someone to do stuff like this, it is just too tempting of a target.
At what point does a virus become hamless and benign, i'm interested in what the /. community think so fthat statement.
well. the contest is REALLY about finding a remote exploit hole in a mac.
because that's what it burns down to, making it self replicating wouldn't be much of an addition.
but why bother.. just send a chain letter with an executable for mac.. that amounts to what is some of windows viruses nowadays anyways(and that's what all symbian viruses are and they're getting awful lot of attention - they're just self replicating 'mailers' that the user needs to install themselfs).. and points out that a system that has no holes doesn't really protect you from everything(it doesn't protect the user if the user WANTS to install the software, which many do).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
A computer is only as secure as its user. Are they going to man these two naked Macs with total noobs, to make it a fair contest?
From TFA: Email attachments will not be opened.
Aren't most Windows viruses spread through attachments/downloads? Sure, there have been many worms spread through open Windows services (that have been patched), but the ongoing threat of viruses is from running/opening documents that are downloaded by the user. Is there any way to stop the same thing on OS X or even Linux?
To make it clear, I don't consider IE as part of Windows (it's just an application), I've been running Windows without IE for years without any problems.
$50,000 might not be enough for Symantec, but I think quite a few employees would enjoy such a... christmas bonus.
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
I am calling bullshit on this obvious lie. You had a clean instal, behind a firewall, with all the service packs installed, and in just 10 minutes after that with a direct connection to the net, someone infected it with spyware? That has to be bullshit.
I have been running Windows 2000 for years, and there is no spyware. And I am not doing anything special. I make sure to fdisk the mbr before an instal, just to make sure someone did not hide something on the hard drive before the instal. I do the instal off-line. Add a software firewall, then connect through a router to the net to get the service packs. I have never had any spyware on my system ever. I disable active-x from IE, and when I did my instal the only net protocol I install is tcp/ip, I do not instal the other 2- client or file & printer sharing.
Come on, when will all this anti-windows BS stop? The only reason people can hack it is because users don't instal service packs and because they open links in emails that use active-x. I gaurentee if those two problems are resolved, it will become 99.9% harder to infect a machine- a hacker would not just be able to run software, he would have to know your system and activly fight to get in, which would be too much work for him.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
AppleScript is a pretty powerful language. Someone might go about creating a MacOSX virus by writing it in AppleScript and disguising it as another program. For instance, the html-formatted email received in Mail would have the look and feel of Apple eNews and information letters with an attached Applescript. The AppleScript when activated pops up a window requesting the administrator password to do some check on the operating system, or to activate a security feature not turned on by default. The AppleScript then gathers all email addresses from Mail and AddressBook and sends itself to everyone in the databases, then the program does "rm -rf /*" as its final trick.
While this is not a virus in the traditional sense, it could work in theory with some unsuspecting Mac users out there, like grandma or aunt Mae. And we all know that this couldn't happen to Slashdotters, not ever!
The things you're talking about aren't really viruses. Remember the most important thing that sets a virus apart from other malicious software: it's self-propagating, no user interaction required. If however you were to talk about bad system administration, like leaving vulnerable services running and not patching, etc. etc., then you'd be right on the money.
In particular, appfolders have had some pretty nasty broken-by-design security exploits like the URL handler variants where an internet enabled DMG would self-mount itself into the filing system and automatically reconfigure URL schemes in Safari, all without the user doing anything other than visiting a web page. I think (hope) they fixed that but it was still several months until all the holes and variants of this technique were "fixed" (really just hacked around). The help system exploits Apple suffered were similar in nature.
Essentially, Apple haven't proven themselves any more skilled at designing secure desktops than Microsoft have. That said, this sort of competition is fairly pointless: being able to "infect" a machine with no action taken by the user boils down to finding buffer/heap overflows and the like in running software. Many viruses propogate with a bit of help from the user, even if all that involves is surfing the web.
No IP addresses of the machines, the virus must be detected by their virus scanner (and be harmless!), and the machines don't open email attachments. Gee, I don't run Outlook or open attachments on my Windows machine, using the same terms, I must be invulnerable.
That's not to say I think Apple is as vulnerable as Windows, just that this "contest" is rigged.
Here come da fudge!
this may be off-topic or whatever, but one of my coworkers was a big jackass and installed norton AV on our G5 Powermac. the next time i used it there was a huge slowdown of the system and a quick check of the process monitor showed it using something like 80% of my cpu time for "AutoProtect." after a prompt uninstall, i've noticed a couple other G5's around here getting wasted by that same software (i'm at a university where grad students, who may or may not be very computer-saavy maintain the systems). does anyone else think this software is just garbage?
Guess what! Does your average joe-six pack run an Apache server? No! If they did, I'm sure Apache would be riddled with problems.
The fact is, anything can be secure in the right hands. As it stands now, Linux and Macs users are in the minority with tech-savvy users. Windows is the dominant OS where complete retards use and administer the computer. They cannot secure anything.
You are comparing to different situations.
Apache is more popular for Internet facing web servers monitored by Netcraft. Is it more popular in total?
Yes.
Which version of Apache is more popular than IIS? IIS 4.0 runs on NT 4.0. IIS 5.0 runs on W2K. IIS 6.0 runs on W2K3. All run on x86. That's it. Apache, OTOH, runs on Solaris, IRIX, HP/UX, Linux (all gazillion varients of it), and even Windows. It runs on Sparc, Itanium, x86, MIPS, etc. Then there's two major code threads. With how many releases within each thread?
There are two and only two versions of Apache. There's Apache version 1, and Apache version 2. There are numerous revisions to each version, because of bugfixes. Moving from Apache 1.3.32 to Apache 1.3.33 doesn't work like it does with Microsoft. First, when I say I'm using Apache 1.3.33, you know what what patches have been applied and whether or not I'm up to date. With IISv5.0, you don't know what patches have been applied that Microsoft didn't bother telling you about. You can't know without running a diagnostic tool on your webserver what version it really is, assuming Microsoft wrote such a tool. Furthermore, each numbered revision of Apache will be better than the others. 1.3.33 fixes something wrong with 1.3.32. New features are in Apache2.
So when you say "Apache" has more marketshare than IIS you're making a specious argument as malware is highly dependent on a specific implementation. There's 3 implementations of IIS. There's literally hundreds if not thousands of implementations of Apache. So I ask: Which implementation has a higher marketshare than IIS?
You have it completely backwards. IIS has an unknown number of versions, as patches to IIS could possibly be applied in any order, if they're applied at all, and there's no easy way to tell. You could look at the DLL version numbers IIS uses, I suppose. There are exactly two implementations of Apache. It runs identically on all of those archetectures you mentioned. Microsoft traded away ease-of-administration with their patch system, but didn't get anything in return. They actually made the security problem worse by doing so.
Sending an executable as a mail attachment is easy, but fooling a user into launching is is much harder on the Mac than it is on Windows.
Unlike Windows, the MacOS uses filesystem embedded filetype and resource fork information to determine what kind of file a file is. You can't just change the filename into photo.jpg or letter.doc to make the attachment look like a photo or a word document. If it is an executable, the Mac will show it as such.
This means you will have to convince the user that the ececutable in question comes from a trusted source and that it is safe to launch. Even then, MacOS X will open a dialog that explains to the user that this is the first time this application is about to be launched, that it might be dangerous and then ask if the user wants to proceed. At that point most Mac users will cancel if they are not sure what this application is and where it came from.
But even if they proceed to launch the application, then the application still won't be able to install anything on the user's machine. If it tries to do that, the user will again be notified that some software is about to be installed and that an administrator password is required to do so.
Somebody would have to be incredibly naive to ignore all the warnings and still proceed.
This type of attack is rather unlikely to be successful in causing a spreading of the trojan. The propagation mechanism is far too weak. The news about such an attack will be all over the net before the trojan had a chance to propagate.
If anybody is to succeed with an attack against the Mac, it would have to be an exploit of some security flaw in the OS or in a privileged application.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Tried to install any applications lately (like, say, OpenOffice)? The installer demands administrator access, and will REFUSE to continue unless it gets it. Even if you're only going to install it into /tmp or $HOME to check it out.
Try to compile F95 in GCC? You might be instructed to download a DMG of "up to date" cctools. But when you mount the drive, you get an installer, and this installer also demands administrator access, presumably so it can stomp on the tools already installed. And it's non-obvious where you go to get the source that will compile on the Mac so you can install it in a place of your own choosing.
Mac users are slowing being trained to be as dumb as MSWindows users. When the pretty little dialog asks for the administrator password, just provide it, otherwise you won't be able to play, and the maintainers of that package will mock you. Caution? What's that? Prudence? Soooo old-school. Paranoia? Get a life!
There's not much difference between being trained to grant a program administrative status every time it asks for it and running as the administrator all the time. It just adds a ten-second delay before your machine is compromised, and people can point at you and wonder aloud why you didn't _know_ what the program was going to do before it did it.
I'm not giving up my Mac in favor of anything out of Redmond. I just want a stick I can beat developers with when they write installers that demand administrative access and refuse to go further until they get it. If the user declines to give the administrative password, then let them choose where to install your software, and give them a README on what they can do "by hand" to integrate your software. IF they so choose.
Pick One: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stremler/sigs/sigs.html (Note - disable Javascript first!)
I don't think this is the most importaint factor. For example, spammers want to send spam. If they can easily exploit a system that only has a small fraction of the market and achieve their goals than I think they would do that. I mean, they will take the path of least resistence that still meets their needs. If Windows is both a vast and easy target, more the better. But if Macs or Linux were easy to exploit there are probobly enough of these systems on the Internet, even with only a combined market share of, say, 10-20%, to meet their needs. As it happens though, Windows has been sufficiently meeting the needs of spammers for the past several years, so why switch platforms mid stream? ;-)
Also, please keep in mind that I am not saying Windows market share does not contribute to it's being attacked. What I am pointing out is that the fact that it is attacked (and exploited) does not mean that it is as secure as Linux or Mac because they are not attacked. What it does prove is that Windows is insecure. It says nothing about Linux or Mac security and people who speculate about Linux or Mac exploits if these systems had a higher market share are just that, speculating. The Windows exloits do prove that Windows is insecure however.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
I'll bite. :-)
My first computer purchase was a Mac back in 89 (though I used TRS-80 and Apple ][ in school and at home/family computer before that).
I used Mac exclusively up until around System 7 days, by which time my Mac Plus was over the hill and moved to cheaper x86 computers for Windows and Linux. I used Macs at work exclusively for a couple of years around 96-98 and at that time, this "savvy" user loved the applications, but hated the random freezes. For me, it was never a 'one button issue', I always figured out the keyboard combinations to work as swiftly with one, two or three buttons depending on the platform I was using. These days I have found a lot of *NIX guys of all denominations have "switched" because they get a damn nice interface with the UNIX features they love. And looking at Apple's website, it's my opinion that they market to both laypeople and power users, as any computer maker should.
Some of the old 'Mac is for newbies' sentiment is a lot of repeated anecdotes. There is some basis for truth, but I don't think that Apple has done anything to exclude the more technical audience. (Like, plug a multiple button mouse to OS/X and the extra buttons work fine.)
The conclusive evidence is that OS X is a flavour of *BSD.
This is a meaningless statement. It is unclear what bearing the BSD heritage has on the ability of OS X to thwart the kind of trojan/malware attacks that Windows users are subjected to.
If that doesn't strike you as conclusive, then feel free to explain how it is that Apache running on *BSD has such a better security record than IIS running on Windows
Without knowing which versions of Apache, BSD, IIS and Windows you are referring to, it is impossible to establish whether your assertion that the Apache/BSD combo is more secure than the IIS/Windows combo is actually true.
And even if it were universally true, it is unclear what bearing any purported security benefit of Apache/BSD over IIS/Windows has on the ability of OS X to thwart the mostly email-propagated attacks that Windows users are subjected to.
That certainly strikes *me* as being a pretty compelling counterargument to the greater market share theory of hacker victimization, anyway...
If you think a non-sequitur based on unsubstantiated premises qualifies as a "compelling counterargument" of any sort, I suppose.
As far as I'm aware there is no conclusive evidence that the "Windows Market Share" theory of exploitation holds any water at all.
Only if you choose to ignore the preponderance of evidence in the form of viruses targetting Windows.
From a _design_ perspective Windows has been shown to be less secure than other operating systems.
From a "design perspective" both Classic Mac OS and DOS are "less secure" than Windows. By your argument they should be drowning in viruses. But they're not. How do you explain this?
It just brings to light that it is insecure, incontravertably and demonstratably insecure.
All that's been brought to light is that you believe that fact-free hystrionics constitute an argument.
It's not illegal if they own the machine that they were asking people to hack.
Or do you assert it's illegal to hack (or request others to hack) your own stuff? Guess what, there goes half the security 'industry'.
From the site: More importantly, I have been convinced that there may be legality issues stemming from such a contest, beyond those determined by our own legal counsel, prior to announcing the contest.
My first reaction was to reach for a loaded lawyer, I would guess that Apple and Symantec would do exactly the same thing. Thought it best to read the thread for some comtext first...
This is a really bad idea for a large number of reasons. First off there are pleny of Apples that have been recruited into botnets. All the user needs to do is to run a buggy version of Apache, or something layered on top and they are vulnerable.
Oh you say, no fair pointing at third party software bugs, they don't count. Well sure they do, the criminals don't care, they will take a machine any way they can. If you take stock Windows load it onto a machine and never use it for anything, guess what you are pretty secure. In fact you can use unpatched Win 3.1 if you never turn the machine on.
The thing that is more worrying about these schemes is that there is a definite barrier effect in hacking. Take phishing for example, the recent spate of phishing began when people worked out that they could create an ATM card from the stolen information aqnd pull cash directly out of an ATM. Now that we have that loophole pretty much closed they are working on the much harder problem of setting up carding operations.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Which may or may not be do to Windows market share. It may also not have to do with any one factor. The problem I see is when Windows zealots use the market share argument exlusively to defend Windows.
I'm really trying to extract your point from your post and not having much success.
How is Classic MacOS and DOS less secure? DOS had zero internet connectivity out of the box. Even if you added a TCP/IP stack there were no services you were going to run on DOS. If you ran Windows 3.1 or something you could run Netscape I think. But then, here we are with Windows (actually, DOS) again with about the same market share as Windows has today and no rampent network exploit problem. So again, I'm not sure what your getting at.
The fact that Windows is exploted is proof that it is insecure. That is my point. Speculating that Linux or Mac would be just as insecure if they had the same market share is just speculation. It also ignores the possiblity that a system that was easier, or even as easy, to exploit as Windows but had a smaller market share might also be exploited. So the fact that Linux and Mac exploits are not a pandemic does not mean that they are just as insecure as Windows. It's not "fact-free hystrionics", it's just observation and logic.
Now if you think Linux is insecure because Windows is exploited maybe you can elaborate on why that is so I can better understand what your getting at. If on the other hand your arguing something else, please don't confuse it with my argument because you make me feel like you are'nt really paying attention to what I am saying.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Unless you're a dirt-poor college student or someone who just graduated a few months ago, $50K really isn't that much when compared to your salary.
Hell, some idiot who barely knows how to cobble together some ActiveX controls in the Visual C++ IDE can make that sort of money as an annual salary. To someone who has been out in the real world for more than a couple of years, $50K represents maybe 9 months salary--which is hardly worth getting fired from your job for.
What an Ultramaroon!
The problem with Symantec's FUD bombs isn't that it's impossible to infect a Mac, it's that Symantec's software doesn't patch exploits... it just catches known malware (well, except for spyware, that's apparently OK) after it's already got to you... hopefully before it has a chance to run.
So the problem is... unless there's an actual virus out in the wild, there's nothing for Symantec's software to check for.
And since it hooks into the OS, at a fairly deep level, any bugs or incompatibilities in their software are effectively new system bugs. So they can only make your computer less reliable and stable. It's not sensible to install AV software in the absence of viruses. It can't possibly help, it can only hurt.
If you read up on Jack, you'll discover he's far worse than just a maker of poor-quality products...he's actually a liar and con artist!
It is not correct, however, to blame Apple for the bugs in Apache. When people rant about bugs in IE, they blame Microsoft and the IE developers. When people rant about bugs in firefox, they don't complain to Torvalds, do they?
This competition was about the bugs on Macs, and the accusations that Macs are as vulnerable as Windows PCs. Third party software is not "Macs." The competition compares OS X and Windows, not OS X with [product] and Windows with [product.] However, it would be valid to blame vulnerable first-party software - such as Finder, or IE.
im in ur
"Somebody would have to be incredibly naive to ignore all the warnings and still proceed."
Yes, and if ignorance really was bliss, the world would be one hell of a lot happier then it actually is.
I'm an IT consultant.
I've watched countless users sit there and click though endless dialogs warning them about how they're about to unleash bubonic plague upon the world or whatever. These people regard warnings as a hassle, something to be dismissed as quickly as possible. They do not regard them as an actual warning. Warnings are something that apply to other people.
If you change the default button to be the "safe" option, they click-and-close, try again and click-and-close, try again and click the other button and continue. They don't do this by reading the dialogs, they do this because if it didn't work the first two times they tried the first button, then it must be the other one.
If you require users to enter in "please destroy all my data" on the keyboard before running something, they will happily do that, to. While asking me why it asks them that.
If you require them to type a password, they'll type that in upon request, too. Look at how successful phishing scams are.
If all this fails to get some badware on the computer, users will seek out things like "Hotbar", "Gator", "Comet Cursor", "Bonzai Buddy", and so on, and try to install them.
People just don't want to have to think. That's the ultimate problem.
There's no doubt that the average MS-Windows system, as deployed, is hideously insecure. However, experience has shown me that even if you lock the system down well, users will still try and destroy it.
I've found the only way to keep users from compromising the security of their system is to remove their ability to do so. Then they just complain to me constantly that they cannot install all their badware. But then I can just tell them "Tough!".
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Not the least of which was the "custom designed" laptop stand that was an off-the-shelf plate holder from Walmart. ;)
Ah, quality products.
I hate to break it to you, but there's very little that Apple (or Mircosoft, or Linux, etc) can do to prevent many types of viruses, since they are installed by the user themselves. Think about a traditional virus that infects a binary and is run when the program is run. Or a trojan program that does bad things to your system. Good file permissions can prevent the spread of such viruses and limit their damage, but they aren't that hard to write. I've even seen prototypes for a shell script virus (in an educational setting, and non-destructive except for polluting your shell scripts). There's very little technically that anyone can do to prevent a shell script virus, at least not without making the system difficult to use (or radically redesigning the system, which will probably have other drawbacks).
Now, if you're talking about worms, yes most spread through security holes in the system, and those can be fixed. But there are many classes of malware where the security "hole" is the human doing work. And those are very hard, if not impossible to prevent.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Many viruses propogate with a bit of help from the user, even if all that involves is surfing the web.
I simply don't buy the 2nd part of that. Only someone completely insane or entirely without morals would design a web browser that executes viewed content silently and as if it were a regular application. The same goes for email. Viewing is, by definition, a read-only activity.
It seems fashionable in some circles to blame the user for visiting the wrong web page or clicking on the wrong email (not attachment). I believe that the user has a reasonable right to expect that these are read-only activities. If software authors cannot guarantee that "just looking" will remain that unless specifically overridden, they have no place delivering software to the public.
Without that assurance, even sophisticated users remain vulnerable unless they specifically curtail there activities to match the limitations of their inadequate software.
For example, I just started working with Outlook and IE again after a long hiatus. I was never impressed by either but I was seriously staggered at how much worse they've gotten. I have relatively high security awareness and expertise, but I still found myself almost immediately challenged with preventing a trojan from pentrating an R&D area of a Fortune 100 network. Even after killing IE (which turned out to be the ONLY way to prevent it), I was doubly concerned because I saw several ways the trojan's presentation could have been trivially modified to make infection inevitable. I'm just hoping my company's detection and correction is a lot better than their prevention. The real irony is that I had just sat through (collectively) 4 hours of security policy training, set about a dozen passwords and used a secureid to log in.
Wow, gone for a few minutes and you miss a lot.
Jack has been active lately. He is notorious in the Mac Community.
Everyone should read my article on his company and past in the Mac Community. It's called: Catch Me If You Can Part II: The True Story Behind MacMice
Make sure to also see the about section to gain clarity on who writes Jackwhispers and why.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The fact that Windows is exploted is proof that it is insecure.
No, it is not. Most Windows exploits require the user to execute an email attachment. The fact that Windows allows the user to do so does not make it insecure, since the same applies to all other operating systems, which renders the definition useless in terms of distinguishing power.
There have been a relatively small number of viruses which exploited flaws in the programming or design of Windows itself, or in some popular Windows software, but these flaws have all been satisfactorily adressed as far as I am aware. Moreover this is not a problem that is limited to Windows or Windows software. So if Windows is "incontravertibly (sic)" insecure because of this, then the same judgment should apply to all other operating systems which have ever required security patches and bugfixes.
With these being the case, it seems that the most important distinguishing factor which makes the impact of viruses so much more potent on Windows than on other operating system is the widespread use of Windows and Windows software, in other words, its market share.
Read about that at Jackwhispers
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Unless you're a dirt-poor college student or someone who just graduated a few months ago, $50K really isn't that much when compared to your salary.
To someone who has been out in the real world for more than a couple of years, $50K represents maybe 9 months salary--which is hardly worth getting fired from your job for.
Wow, man, you need a good dose of the real world. For your sake I hope you don't get it, though. (The average salary in the US is $37,000. Hundreds of millions of us would strongly disagree with your assertion that "$50K really isn't that much".) In your case, maybe your stock options are worth more than $50K, but judging from your description of how stock options work I doubt it.
Been following this guy's sleaze and slime for years, adzoox is right.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Nice theory, but here's a few more points for you:
Postscript has been around two decades now, and AFAIK the only "virus" ever reported written it couldn't do anything but reset your Apple Laserwriter password. If you think you can write a Postscript program which reformats my hard drive, talks to my mail client, or even just brings up a dialogue box on my screen that says "Hi, I'm PostScript!", you're welcome to start hackin' now.
Thank you for identifying Windows Exploit Myth #2. The life expectancy of a Windows box connected directly to the Internet is measured in minutes. I know first hand because we service Windows systems in our shop. While SP2 has gone a long way to improving security, even with it Windows is paricularly suseptable to exploits. Also please note that XP2, the be all end all of Windows security is only available for Windows XP. Many people are still running 9x or 2000, a group to which MS has become down right abusive.
As for needing the user to run an attachment or something it's not that simple. Browsing the web and installing popular well known and used software can start a slow slide into total destruction.
Finally, please note you are still not understanding my argument which is that just because Windows has been brought to it's knees by the Internet does not mean that other OS's are just as insecure because they do not have the same market share. It's speculation. It's absurd. I dare say it's idiotic, counterproductive and FUD food. Thats why I brought it up, it's deceitful and wrong headed and needs to stop. The issue of how a FOSS operating system will fare once it attains the market share that MS has enjoyed has yet to be seen, If I am to speculate I would say that it would become so secure as to alter our our fundamental conception of security and what can be achieved. But then thats just me.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
named Switchback which infected OSX Macs, but nobody noticed it.
Probably because the article was written by 'Anne Onymus', was a joke and 'Rumor Mill' is a parody site.
There are others such as Renepo.B
Uh, no. Renepo is a bash script that attempts to gather passwords. It spreads by copying itself to "/Volumes//Library/StartupItems/". So for this script to work, first you have to run it as root, and have the root volumes of other Mac's mounted in that directory with superuser write access. Not even Gumby could reach so far as to call this a virus.
MacOS MW2004 Trojan
That's a trojan, not a virus. Did you look at what you were copying & pasting? As long as we have software applications it will be possible to write one that will try to do something behind your back. This one masquerades as a Mirosoft Office 'web installer'.
MP3 Concept
Another trojan. Even Symantic calls this a trojan, as they did MW2004, and they have the most vested interest in convincing Mac users that there are viruses for which they need to buy anti-virus software.
Opener
While this script does some very nasty stuff, like running John the Ripper to decrypt your own passwords, it is also not a virus. It's more of a classic unix rootkit. Did you read these articles you're linking to, or did you just copy and paste from a Google search? From the comments in the scipt itself:
- # You need an admin level user name and password or physical access (boot from a CD or firewire, ignore permissions on the internal drive) to install this
sound driver virusAlright, you are trolling, or just too lazy to check your own links. If you go to that website, you'll see that it says,
- "SoundDiver Virus is a editor/librarian solution for Windows 95, XP, MacOS 9 and MacOS X and can be downloaded free of charge from the Access Music web site."
I think clearly the only virus myth about OSX, is the myth that OSX has no viruses that can infect it.Yeah, there are myths...and you're trying to spread them. There are rootkits, there are trojans, but OS X still has a perfect record when it comes to viruses.