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Mac users 'too smug' Over Security?
wild_berry writes "Bill Thompson, one of the BBC's technology commentators and presenter of Go Digital on the BBC World Service, expresses his concerns that Mac users assume their safety in the face of trojans, worms, keyloggers and other malware. As a Mac user he is most concerned about the lack of herd immunity that is needed to stop a few infections becoming an epidemic, fully explained in his column week for the BBC technology site. Is he right, and what actual products exist for OS X that would protect against infections?"
Mac users are too smug about... everything ;]
That link doesn't even mention OS X, and is dated 2000.
Peter
there are numerous anti virus programs out there for the Mac, but what virus are they scanning for? There are no known viruses for OS X, so how can they update the virus definitions if they have nothing to base it on? They've seen a vulnerability here and there, but nothing has been exploited yet. So it's like the chicken and the egg. you need an AV program to protect yourself from viruses, but you need a virus for the program to detect.
The day i see a virus on OS X is the day I buy an AV program.
So, is there a profile of a Mac virus writer???
Judging by the amount of viruses out for Mac OS X he's one lazy fucker.
Is he right, and what actual products exist for OS X that would protect against infections?
Today, wild_berry was the billionth story submitter to place an annoying question at the end of his submission. Despite the pleas of nearly a million Slashdot users, wild_berry took part in the timeless tradition of Kindergarten Teachers and Coffee Talkers everywhere, and gave us a topic to discuss amongst ourselves.
What about YOU, what is your opinion of annoying questions at the end of postings? What do YOU think about them? Do YOU have any solutions to the problem?
Better yet:
There are around 40 Mac-specific viruses and related threats. ++Mac users with [Microsoft] Word 6 or versions of Word/Excel supporting Visual Basic for Applications, however, are vulnerable to infection by macro viruses which are specific to these applications. Indeed, these viruses can, potentially, infect other files on any hardware platform supporting these versions of these applications. I don't know of a macro virus with a Mac-specific payload that actually works at present, but such a payload is entirely possible. ++[Microsoft] Office 98 applications are in principle vulnerable to most of the threats to which Office 97 applications are vulnerable.
Funny. 40 Mac viruses compared to how many PC viruses? 71989 and counting according to Symantec. And the most mentioned causes of problems in security on the Mac Platform? Microsoft products. I rest my case.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
You're not vulnerable if you're not a target. Macs are not targets. And I fix all computers, Windows, Linux, Macs. Mac people are no more or less smug than those other users. Most Windows people don't have a clue about firewalls, virii, trojans, or worms fyi. Computer users are all the same. They just want something that works. BTW I haven't had to remove a virus, trojan, or a worm from a Mac yet. I've done that for Windows machines all the time and make good money doing it. You do the math.
That's beside the point of the article. The article wasn't blasting security on the Mac, it was pointing out that Mac's are susceptible to problems to. Doesn't the vulnerability of software running on a Mac constitute a security problem on the Mac? If I can get in does it matter if it's through the OS directly or through an application?
The article was suggesting that Mac users need to be every bit as cautious as the "rest of us" on our Windows boxes. It was railing against the same type of thinking that causes parents to decide not to get their children vaccinated against things like measles because you never hear of measles cases anymore. Of course not! It's because we've been vaccinated! So Mac users: go get your booster shots.
----- Connection reset by beer
A couple of men went camping. They camped at a remote site, new to them, where they didn't really know everyone else who was camping there. After setting up, one of the men put a little, teeny tiny lock on their tent flap door. His friend looked at the flimsy lock and remarked, "That lock is nowhere near good enough to keep out anyone who might want to get into your tent! Why, I bet I could get through that lock in less than a minute.". The first man replied, "The lock doesn't need to be the best lock in the world; it just needs to be better than that guy's" -- and he pointed to the tent next door, without a lock at all.
The point being, surely Mac OS X is not the end-all and be-all of security, but Apple has by all accounts gotten increasingly serious about security as Mac OS X has matured. It's not ever going to be possible to have a 100% perfect level of security, but as long as it's better than that guy's (points to Redmond, WA), in most people's minds it'll be the most secure commercial OS on the market. ~jeff
According to Wil Shipley, there has been maybe one real virus for Mac OS X, maybe. Even then, it didn't spread much and no one's sure if it really existed in the wild and it may have just been a trojan.
There's no substituting an OS that doesn't let the average user have administrator rights all the time
Yes, because as we all know the really valuable data on the computer is the OS and installed programs. You know, the stuff that can be replaced in a few hours.
All that user data that's completely and utterly irreplacable? Worthless. Who cares if a virus or trojan destroys it? And it obviously doesn't matter if a keylogger running in userspace sniffs out all your bank passwords and sends them to a 3rd party (what, you don't need admin privs to open a socket?!?!), because, hey, the OS itself is still secure!
The amount of real damage that a virus, worm, or trojan can do is not substantially affected by whether or not it can get administrator privledges. It may be easier to remove, but that's about it. And, frankly, if your average user runs in a lower privledged account then they're likely to get used to typing in the admin password when prompted, without even thinking about it.
And that's what it ultimately boils down to -- the user. Clueless users will get hit by crap all the time regardless of the platform. Clued users will not, again regardless of the platform. I've been using PCs for over 20 years now, most of that time on DOS or Windows (although I've also used OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and several others) and I've been hit with a virus exactly once -- and that was about 18 years ago. It infected very little too, because I was running a virus scanner that caught it quickly (back in the days when McAfee was free(ish) for personal use). Nor have I ever had to remove spyware, malware, etc. on any of my personal or work systems.
OS X has a rather high percentage of non-technical users, just as Windows does. Do you really think that they're immune to doing stupid things?
Insightful? who mod'ed this?
;-)
one of the rules of security is "don't make it easy and obvious" -- OS X does that, Windows doesn't. Windows is the "honey pot" for the world. With all the unsecure machines any script kit can bust it. OS X would take some real work, so the hackers go elsewhere.
another rule: layered defense -- OS X does it, Windows doesn't. With Windows, break into an app or file and you are at the OS core -- see WMF.
It is not about market share, it is about market share of *unsecure* machines. The Windows "not secure" architecture and legacy will haunt it for years to come. If OS X gets 50% market share, those remaining Windows machines will still be just as unsecure and will still get just as hammered by malware, etc. It doesn't follow that overall malware will equally affect OS X.
Try this analogy: there were more robberies of homes than banks....and it ain't because there are so many more homes. Banks are just more difficult to rob, risks are greater and penalties greater. OS X is the bank -- it can be robbed, but I don't spend my time worrying about it. My home, on the other hand, has "windows" -- and I worry about that a lot!
Two observations:
a) do a market share observation of security folks and technical folks at generic computer conferences: the market share of OS X is more like 30-40% for people in the know.
b) as much "negative reaction" as folks have to Steve Jobs and Apple, if someone could write a virus, etc. for OS X, they would have done so by now, just to throw it in his face and make headlines across the tech world. I am still waiting.
The point of TFA is that Macs don't get the kind of scrutiny that Windows machines do.
This is, by the way, not even mentioning the following: Now that OS-X, Windows, and Linux all run on the same hardware, spreading a fully cross-platform virus is easy. The virus first attempts to identify the target machine. Upon doing so and diagnosing apprent weaknesses, the virus then packages the relevant position-independant code in an appropriate executable container (ELF for linux, PE for Windows, a.out or unibin for OS-X) and set the entry point.
The virus then executes a found exploit, causing the offending computer to download the converted virus from the attacking computer (uploading a virus via buffer overrun is tricky; it's better to simply send up a stub that grabs the virus from the attacker than to try for a full infection via exploit). This can be done by either piggybacking the download through a program that's been cleared by the firewall (wget, internet explorer, etc), or by creating a servlet whos only purpose is to wait for connections from the attacker and let it upload.
Hell, on OS-X, you could even have it download and compile the virus SOURCE behind the user's back.
I've said it here before: I'm a pretty good programmer, and I've been fighting viruses for years. Be glad I don't write the damned things; I could probably cripple the world. The same is true for any half-competant programmer with an interest in security.
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That's beside the point of the article. The article wasn't blasting security on the Mac, it was pointing out that Mac's are susceptible to problems to. Doesn't the vulnerability of software running on a Mac constitute a security problem on the Mac? If I can get in does it matter if it's through the OS directly or through an application?
Yes, it does matter. A remote exploit available in the default install of an OS is what allows for a worm to propagate and is what makes plugging an unpatched Windows machine into a network suicide. Local vulnerabilities that don't even include a privilege escalation are a completely different severity. When those vulnerabilities further do not even have any payload that will affect OS X, well that is less of a threat as well.
The article was suggesting that Mac users need to be every bit as cautious as the "rest of us" on our Windows boxes. It was railing against the same type of thinking that causes parents to decide not to get their children vaccinated against things like measles because you never hear of measles cases anymore. Of course not! It's because we've been vaccinated! So Mac users: go get your booster shots.
Your analogy is flawed. How about if parents on the remote island of Wabbachucha don't go to the bother of flying to the mainland to get their kids vaccinated when their has never been a single reported case of measles on the island, while there have been a number of plane crashes flying to the mainland. Right now the mac neighborhood is in pretty good shape. By default the machines are relatively secure, and the architecture lends itself to containing and preventing security issues. It makes sense to be cautious and it makes sense to take precautions, but you have to have a reasonable threat assessment. If you have an 18 year old daughter living in Detroit, it might make sense for her to get a concealed pistol permit, especially if she goes out at night. On Wabbachucha, crime is so low the risk is greater that she will injure or kill herself than prevent harm to herself.
So far there have been no worms or viruses that have affected the mac. All vulnerabilities have been fixed before that becomes a problem. So far there have been two instances of virus scanning software for the mac that have had adverse affects and damaged files. Personally, I run ClamAV and LittleSnitch as well as some other useful precautions, but for the average user, they really are better off without these days. Mac users, don't get your booster shots until there is something in the syringe. Until there actually are viruses for the Mac propagating in the wild, don't risk installing possibly buggy virus scanners and certainly don't pay money for them.