Apple Releases 31 Security Fixes

Agram writes, "This week Apple has released fixes for 31 vulnerabilities in its OS, although reportedly a number of known flaws remain un-addressed (according to the instigator of the Month of Kernel Bugs, 'Apple hasn't fixed any of the bugs published during [MoKB], except for the AirPort issue'). Earlier this year, in a move reminiscent of Microsoft's past patching faux pas, Apple released a 'fix' the installation of which broke features unrelated to the targeted flaw. With the growing number of low-level flaws, one has to wonder if Apple's 'more secure' argument still stands. Earlier this month, Microsoft released 6 fixes. Linux does not seem to fare much better. Despite all of these fixes, exploits remain in the wild for each platform. Perhaps, security-wise, the OS choice really boils down to a 'pick-your-poison X user-base' equation?"

Comments

Attacks Still Low

[wiz31337]

Apple has known security bugs and yet people still focus on killing Windows boxes. I'd like to know Apple's secret.

Re:Attacks Still Low

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has known security bugs and yet people still focus on killing Windows boxes. I'd like to know Apple's secret.

It's simple, they charge so much money for their machines that the end consumer doesn't have any money left. No point in infecting and hacking the boxes of people who don't have any money!

Re:Attacks Still Low

[Old Thrashbarg]

Your argument seems to be that OS X runs on loads of servers, which makes it a great target..

Er, no, his argument was that Unix runs on lots of servers, not OSX.

First off it doesn't run on loads of servers, it has no presence in the server market.

Wow, in that case I'm gonna have to cut down on the coffee because I'm having powerful hallucinations every time I walk into my server room...

What the URL

[jlebrech]

First of all whats the URL for Linux? and second what's a URL?

Re:What the URL

[Weedlekin]

"what's a URL?"

It's short for "Universal Reason for Litigation", and is something big IP owners use to obtain money from people who have very little of it.

Re:Please

[El Lobo]

No one sane ever said Mac OS X was invulnerable.

You have never talked to the average mac user, have you?

Re:Slashdot

[MECC]

Dear Slashdot editors,

your readers are all technically literate.

All...?!

You know what, you're right!

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

My linux laptop is all crudded up with 9000 spyware bonzi buddy applets, and my OSX work machine was just discovered to be a spam zombie spewing out half a billion UBE's per week.

Bad, Apple, bad. *thwacks Apple with rolled up newspaper*

Don't break any fixes anymore, you're supposed to be perfect.

so...

[thelost]

...what is being suggested is that the more complex a system becomes the more points of failure it has - wow, I need me a ticker tape parade.

It's hardly news that if someone goes looking for problems they find them - what is more revealing is the general response to the issues discovered:

Windows: 'well that's what you get when you write closed source crap and you try and bleed money out of your customers'.
Apple: 'That'll wipe the smiles off their smarmy faces'.
Linux: 'Oh we so good - look at how open source instantaneously fixes these problems, cures cancer and helps little orphans'.

all these above responses are of course propaganda (please refrain from using that awful, awful word "fud").

It's ironic that one of the hottest topics on slashdot, climate warming is accused of being one of the most tainted sciences but when it comes to something much simpler, the efficacy of patches on modern systems it turns into the biggest mud slinging match you could imagine.

Re:I predict...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

All 3 of them?

Re:No OS...

[Dystopian Rebel]

...will ever be perfect (except for GODOS).

Of course, the problem with GODOS is that you can't know if it's perfect until the computer is scrapped. In the Bitchy Beadle release of GODOS, the Schrödinger kernel is expected to improve the tracelogs.

There have been reports of computer users who claim to have briefly seen the perfection of GODOOS when their power supplies have developed an intermittent fault. Unfortunately for the proponents of GODOS, no one whose motherboard has been completely fried has ever been able to compute with it again.

Confusing the question further is the fact that computer users are known to declare that SATANOS is running on their computers whenever anything goes wrong.

Whew!

[cciRRus]

Good thing I'm using Windows. Oh wait...

It Never Did

[RAMMS EIN]

``With the growing number of low-level flaws, one has to wonder if Apple's 'more secure' argument still stands.''

It never did. First of all, you can't compare security of operating systems, because you can't eliminate bias from your tests. Secondly, Apple's OS is closed source, which you can never trust. Thirdly, much of the OS is written in unsafe languages (particularly C, C++, and, perhaps, Objective C - I don't know if the last is unsafe), and thus, the statistical probability that it will contain security holes is high. Finally, I don't think Mac OS X has been so thouroughly scrutinized by security experts as Windows has, so it's very well possible that Windows is more secure by now, regardless of it's starting position. However, we will never know that, because of the first point.

Re:OSX server market...

[vindimy]

Amen! Nothing else to add. Go patch your servers and monitor the logs... stop whining about insecure OS's when the real problem is you. YOU!