Worm Claimed For Apple OS X

SkiifGeek writes "Controversy is slowly building over the development of a claimed new worm that targets OS X systems, dubbed by its inventor Rape.osx. Using a currently undisclosed vulnerability in mDNSResponder, the worm is said to give access to root as it spreads across the local network. As with a number of recent Apple-related security discoveries, the author, InfoSec Sellout, is delaying reporting the vulnerability to Apple until after completing full testing of the worm. While the worm has yet to leave a testing environment (with 1,500 OS X systems), it is bound to join the likes of Inqtana and Leap as known OS X malware."

Comments

Re:Tipping the scales?

[Cal Paterson]

No, that's just not how it works.

The fact that it is breaking news is because of the oft cited claim that Macs' are not susceptible to viruses; not because they are actually secure and this is an unexpected attack. Apple do not engage in anywhere near the level of testing or release engineering to actually be secure - they're secure for the same reasons that Windows is secure: obscurity.

It's just that their market share has recently become high enough for them to become a target of virus writers, not because they are better designed.

Re:Tipping the scales?

[Maniac-X]

There's a reason for that. ~90%+ of computers on earth are running Windows, while it's estimated that Macs control about 2.5% of the market. If you're writing malware to hurt people, do you want to do it to a very small minority? No, you want to go after the big group, because you get the most victims that way.