From Bit-Tech.net:
"...[H]eise Security, a private UK security firm, has found multiple leaks in the Leopard firewall that may give viruses and other malware direct access to your system...
"Unfortunately the Leopard firewall failed to detect viruses that infiltrated the system while the firewall was disabled, even after it was reactivated. Basically, users who haven’t noticed their firewall deactivated may potentially already be infected with malware that won’t be caught by Apple’s software, even after you reactivate it..."
From Wired.com:
"...'[A]pple's day has finally come, and Apple users are going to get hit hard,' security researcher Gadi Evron said. 'OS X is the new Windows 98.'
"Announced Wednesday by Mac-focused security company Intego, the Mac Trojan was found on a set of pornography sites, where attackers dangled free movies that supposedly required users to install a special Quicktime codec to view. The codec, however, is fake. Instead of unlocking a skin flick, it installs what Intego dubbed the OSX.RSPlug.A Trojan horse on the user's computer..."
Welcome to the mainstream, Macintosh users. Apple will have to get its act together quick, or you'll soon suffer the same fate as us with bloated operating systems inflated by excessive software and incessant updates.
Just remember, so far these problems are limited to the newest, Leopard build of OS X.
Also, almost as a footnote, this interesting bit of education is out, credits again to Bit-Tech.net:
"Microsoft has just released the third volume of its Security Intelligence Report, which reports on the malware released between January and June 2007 and the effectiveness of its Malicious Software Removal Tool.
"Overall statistics show greatly decreased infection rates in Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 when compared to older versions of the Windows OS."
This is good for now, but black hat crackers will always keep trying to infiltrate systems. What still scares me is that Vista requires 14-15 Gigabytes of space on the hard drive. Have we come to the point where adding more and more code is the only solution? Until we radically rethink the way a computer works and programs are processed, I am afraid so.
Of course, I'm not happy that Mac users are vulnerable - that's just a little selfish attack. What this proves is that no system is secure. When anything - a computer operating system or government - grows too large in size (for OS's, I mean usage, not data size) it's much easier to attack. At least Apple was smart and didn't try to market their systems based on their former security: their growth is now presenting new problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment