Mac's & The Virus

[Lewis]

Apple Quietly Pulls Claims of Virus Immunity

Jun 24, 2012 12:30 pm
In the wake of the Flashback botnet which targeted Mac computers, Apple has removed a statement from its messages on its website that Mac operating system X (OS X) isn't susceptible to viruses.

Apple removed the previous statement "It doesn't get PC viruses" and replaced it with "It's built to be safe," and "Safeguard your data. By doing nothing" with "Safety. Built in." A comparison of the old and new messages is currently available here.
According to Sophos U.S. senior technology consultant Graham Cluley, this is a sign that Apple is starting to take security seriously.
"I view the changes in the messages pushed out by their marketing department as some important baby-steps," he wrote in a blog entry.


"Let's hope more Apple Mac owners are also learning to take important security steps -- such as installing antivirus protection."
In addition to changing its marketing messages, Apple has released a security guide for the iPhone operating system iOS and announced in February that OS X 10.8, or Mountain Lion, would include a new feature called Gatekeeper that would restrict which applications users can install on their devices.
Cluley is not the only security expert who has urged Apple to improve its OS protection.


In a recent interview with Computerworld Australia, Kaspersky Lab co-founder Eugene Kaspersky said the company needed to extend time frames for supporting older operating systems. For example, in May this year Apple ended support for OS X 10.5, also known as Leopard, when OS X 10.7 was released.
"Apple has stopped supporting some older operating systems but there are still millions of people using these systems," he said. "It means if vulnerabilities are found, any kind of bad guys will be free to infect these machines."
Apple Australia was contacted by Computerworld Australia but declined to comment.
Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick
Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU

 

[tim-from-pa]

This reminds me of medical science and practice. Why? Because you have a sickly (Microsoft) patient that goes to the doctors all the time, on loads of drugs and surgeries and never gets any better, but then he tells a perfectly healthy guy (Mr. Mac) who only gets a seasonal cold on occasion, "You hit 50 now. You better get a check-up or you'll end up like me... sickly all the time." To which he goes and then the doctor tells him he needs blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, blood sugar pills and you name it. "But I feel fine, doctor." Then the doctor proceeds to tell him how sick he really is and maybe he'll be at death's door soon trying to convince him he's as bad as the sickly patient of his that never gets better.

Mr. Mac goes home feeling just terrible because he did not know he was so sick and the truth is he is not. He'll probably outlive the sickly patient and even the doctor. Makes any sane person listening to this story burn with rage. Hate when someone or something low tries to drag someone else down to their level.

The Microsofters out there just can't admit they have a jack-shoot viral-prone OS that the average user who doesn't know the ropes and tricks out there won't stand a chance and fry their computer within the week. So, they try to drag Mac into the mess as if it's just as bad (I think it's jealousy, frankly). The same average user may fry their Mac, but statistically it'll probably take years, not weeks, to do.

Trust me, Mac is on top of the situation quite well. Now if Microsoft (et al) stopped getting out of their glass houses and throwing stones, and worked on their house structure instead, I assure everyone my respect would return to them. As of the 20+ years dealing with all the headaches, they have a lot of catching up to do and I have not seen much improvement yet.

 

[yoamocuy]

I think the whole virus talk for any system seems to be blown a bit out of proportion. I've had the same 350$ windows laptop for goin on 6 years now, only used AVAST free antivirus software, and only had 1 virus that took 10 minutes to remove. I can also only think of one other person who's ever gotten a virus, although I imagine it would probably be a bit easier to forget other people I know who have gotten a virus than it would be to forget my virus experiences. All that to say, it seems as if one has to make a good effort to get a virus these days, unless AVAST is just that good of an antivirus software... Considering how it's free, I doubt that it is leaps and bounds better than other antivirus software available.

 

[WIP]

My experience has been similar.

Bought our first desktop in 1999 running Windows98SE. Used it until the spring of 2007. During that time I had one incident where it picked up a hijacker. Used HijackThis and cleaned up the registry and didn't have any more trouble. That occurred while we were using McAfee antivirus. I later began using AVG antivirus.

Upgraded to a new system in 2007 running Windows Vista Home Premium. Been using it ever since and to my knowledge (obviously a loose phrase) we have not yet been infected. Today I use AVG free antimalware and UAC.

 

[Chris.]

This mac user asks "What is a virus"? [FONT=Courier New, Courier, mono] [/FONT]

 

[Mike]

Come on PC users. Tim's right. Let's be honest. We wake up every day and have to spend hours undoing the damage our systems welcomed in with open arms. Every minute we're on line, we're expecting our systems to be brought to their knees. It's so awful to be victimize like this every day.

 

[Chris.]

Come on PC users. Tim's right. Let's be honest. We wake up every day and have to spend hours undoing the damage our systems welcomed in with open arms. Every minute we're on line, we're expecting our systems to be brought to their knees. It's so awful to be victimize like this every day.

Yeah mike I so miss that. It gave me extra things to do to kill boredom.

That was my old existence with that VISTA windows with pirate software on it exactly what you wrote above. That and XP I was forever fixing it and concerned for security.

 

[chaz345]

The difference between macs and PCs in terms of viruses and malware is that with the Mac, one has to be tricked into allowing it to install, the OS is, by default, "hardened". With the PC there's a thousand and one ways such software can install itself without any input from the user. The easiest and most common way is through Internet Explorer since it's so deeply integrated with the OS. Simply using a different browser cuts way down on the amount of crap one's PC accumulates. That alone is of course not sufficient, but it's a very good first step. The best second step is to ditch the expensive and resource hogging commercial anti-virus from Norton or McAfee and use either Avast or AVG(or both since the surprisingly play very well together). If you are using ONLY the anti-virus, Norton can be ok, but all of their other security nonsense only serves to slow your machine down more than the crapware that it's designed to prevent. But there's no reason at all to pay for norton when Avast and AVG do the job as well, if not better, for free. Three windows machines in my house(and three Macs) all online constantly, and I've never had a virus and all we use is Avast.

 

[tim-from-pa]

The difference between macs and PCs in terms of viruses and malware is that with the Mac, one has to be tricked into allowing it to install......

That's right. This is what I been saying all along about Macs and Linux systems. They get infected when one is tricked, and such malware is called a Trojan. It's a deliberately installed program with nefarious intentions and as such already has full permissions because the installer gave it that. The OS is merely carrying out the instructions.

That's a far cry from something taking over your system without your knowledge or consent in a stealth fashion. Every once in awhile I have to list the 4 common ways I got a virus on my Microsoft just to prove I'm not some imbecile "clicking on some flashing banner" or some other lame-brained thing like that.

Here they are:

1) I Googled a picture of a rat because we had them at work and I wanted to learn more. Clicked on a picture from a legit-sounding web site. Got a virus.
2) I read an email --- I did not open or execute anything and indeed, I did not even see an attachment.
3) Misspelled a URL in the address box which took me to a viral site.
4) Visited this site. I did not answer anyone or anything, but someone said the link had a virus in it, so all I did was hover (not click) the cursor over the link just to write down the URL so that I could enter it in my Android nook. Got a virus (on the Microsoft, that is, not the Android) BTW, that was not the first time this site had viruses, but the other time I was using Linux and was one of the few on the board here while the Microsoft machines were dropping like flies.

I dare anyone to get any malware this way, without user intervention, on a Mac or Linux system this way. As a matter of fact, if I was smart, I'd wager double or nothing my whole retirement account so that I could retire twice as rich today. Furthermore, I dare anyone to deliberately write a virus to infect a Mac or Linux machine in this fashion even if everyone decided to use those two OS's today and drop the Microsoft, there still would not be as many infections.

To use hypnosis as an example, Macs and Linux machines only cluck like chickens if they give the hypnotist the permission to do it. Microsoft will go under without its knowledge and have absolutely no will power, so it can be going along doing its business when it hears a snap of the fingers and Microsoft suddenly clucks like a chicken.

That's a ludicrous example, but an good illustration of the difference between the amount of influence malware has on the different OS's.