Submitted by “OS.X Macarena poses no viable threat as currently conceived. Although we don’t have our hands on the virus source code, according to Symantec (who initially publicized the virus last week) OSX.Macarena can infect neither PowerPC-exclusive binaries, nor Universal binaries. It can only affect binaries that are Intel-specific. That would include various system files, but since OSX.Macarena can only infect files in its own directory and has no means of gaining the privileges necessary to escalate into directories where most system files are stored, the the threat level is mitigated.”
How many viruses in the wild are dangerous for mac users ???
0 (ZERO) !!! Is that hard to admit ?
Eventually a real (dangerous) mac virus will appear (that’s is true ofr ANY OS) but macarena is clearly not that one…
lol, don’t be that honest, the huge crowd of OS X jealous and/or natural born anti-Apple will certainly mod you down…
You know… truth hurts…
OS X is 5 years old? Could you specify this?
Tiger is 2 years old and Leopard will be released soon.
Truth hurts?
Please specify that, too.
> OS X is 5 years old? Could you specify this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.0
“Mac OS X version 10.0, code named Cheetah, released on 2001-03-24 for a price of…”
Tiger is 2 years old and Leopard will be released soon.
Yeah. So XP SP2 is 2 years old and has, how many, milions of viruses? Vista is not out yet, and still number of viruses outruns OS X (+ Linux all together). Please specify that, too.
Tiger is not equivalent to XP SP2.
“Tiger is not equivalent to XP SP2.”
Even if it is superior, each OS X release is like a service pack plus some features. Not a brand new OS.
I would have to say you are wrong on that point. MS and Apple use two different methods of numbering their major releases. Also, each named release of OS X is a complete OS in it’s own right. I can take any newly named release, put the DVD into the player and do a complete installation. Try that with an MS Service Pack and see how far you get. I can then take the old release and install that on another Mac and do so legally.
The Apple equivalent of the SP is a DL just like they are with Windows. When you build on a proper foundation you don’t have to completely rewrite the code base to provide a new OS. And anyway, it is mostly a matter of semantics as to what constitutes a new OS.
I never said it’s a new OS. Okay, offtopic.
Edited 2006-11-07 17:43
Quote:
> “Tiger is not equivalent to XP SP2.”
>
> Even if it is superior, each OS X release is like a
> service pack plus some features. Not a brand new OS.
That is wrong. I could also say that WinXP is not a brand new OS… it is just Windows NT 6.0. Or other way of saying it is that it is always NT with ‘some features’ added and new themes.
it is just Windows NT 6.0
lol
WinXP = NT5.1
NT6.0 = Vista
Somebody needs a bloddy thesaurus. What’s up with using “specify” everywhere?
Writing viruses is about wreaking wide-scale havoc. Given how few OS X machines there are in use, it really makes zero sense for a virus writer to target them.
Ah yes, the old “there’s not a lot of Macs around so who would write a virus for them” comeback. Hmmm, now lets think about this. How much kudos would go to the person who created the first really effective Mac virus? Would they not be a legend in their own lunchbox?
Is the aim to wreak havoc? Maybe. Selling more virus software – hmmm, now there’s a thought…
I don’t really agree things in the Unix world seem to be more secure just because Mac OS X, Linux and Unix users are very small in numbers. Case in point: Apache vs. Microsoft IIS. Apache is the most popular webserver in the world, by far, and yet has held up far better to attacks over the years than Microsoft’s server.
Of course it poses no threat, the fact that Symantec even tried to escalate something that it’s not, has just made myself and many others loose even more trust for them.
Symantec’s ONLY thoughts behind any of this is to make money.
They complained about Vistas new lock down system with the Kernel and forced them to open it up, because they still want to make it look like their products are the best.
When in fact it would of been better for Vista to keep it locked out, and as much as I don’t like Microsoft’s ways of doing things, it was the first time I had respect for them for taking a stand.
I would take anything Symantec say with a grain of salt these days, their software has become so bloated, escalating things that obviously aren’t a threat.
Also it would be interesting to link this article at silicon.com.
According to one person from Sophos Asia who has saw the virus source code, many comments in the code seem to show that the virus author had a hard time to write it. From the article:
“However, in the source code, Ducklin said the author had expressed what appears to be frustration at trying to make the virus effective on Apple’s platform.
Ducklin said: “In the source code, which is a mishmash of stuff, there is a comment where the author says ‘so many problems for so little code’. So it does look as though virus writers, fortunately, still have a way to go before they are able to write Mac viruses with the proficiency and fluidity that they can for Windows.
“It doesn’t have any of the characteristics of a modern effective or dangerous Windows worm or Trojan, it is a simple appending parasitic infector.” ”
Everyone can now conclude whatever he/she wants!!!!!
“”It doesn’t have any of the characteristics of a modern effective or dangerous Windows worm or Trojan, it is a simple appending parasitic infector.” ”
Everyone can now conclude whatever he/she wants!!!!!”
It can easily be concluded that Windows is way ahead of Mac on virus and worm technology
WARNING!!!! Reports of aliens have been found to be roaming in your backyard! You have better act quick and buy my super duper alien B Gone bug spray before it is too late!!! Now we have yet to capture or even really see the aliens but my best friend’s mother’s brother’s ex-girlfriend who lives in a van down by the river confirmed it!!!
i told you this would happen one day! I mean come on it was a matter of time! Frisbees, tenticles, and other artifacts prove aliens exist!
Buy now while it is cheap! BTW we are filing for bankrupcy other companies have done a better job and I am getting too tired to in creating FUD so…. don’t delay buy now!!!! ARGHGH I see them now!!!
oh….
Hi mom…
Edited 2006-11-07 14:33
I forgot the link to the article, here it is :
http://software.silicon.com/malware/0,3800003100,39163844,00.htm
Funny how this virus is rendered ineffective by the “antiquated” UNIX security model. OS X, which only got ACLs in 10.4, and which still doesn’t have a fancy object-based, token-passing, fine-grained security model, still has a better security track record than any consumer version of NT, which has all these things.
Toss this on the mountain of evidence suggesting that simple systems are just plain better than complex systems when it comes to security.
Edited 2006-11-07 14:32
Hear, hear! And there, too.
Funny how this virus is rendered ineffective by the “antiquated” UNIX security model. OS X, which only got ACLs in 10.4, and which still doesn’t have a fancy object-based, token-passing, fine-grained security model, still has a better security track record than any consumer version of NT, which has all these things.
The issue with NT security isn’t whether ACLs are better or worse than simplified rwx attributes. The issue is the proper choice of defaults. By default, NT doesn’t apply restrictive ACLs across the board. If it did that, there would be no practical difference between the security systems. Similarly, most users run as Admin under NT.
Vista, on the other hand, implements LUAs (Limited User Accounts) and provides restrictive ACLs BY DEFAULT, so these kinds of attacks won’t be possible.
So tomcat I gather you will be making a public statement here to the contrary as soon as the first worm, trojan or exploit hits Vista?
Oh wait – thats already happened…
We’re talking about viruses here. You do know the difference between a virus, a worm, and a trojan, right?
Yes tomcat, I do, but Joe Public doesn’t, and neither should he have to.
Bottom line for him is that his system gets screwed over because of inefficiencies in an operating system that has earned the company that creates it billions of dollars but that company in over 20 years hasn’t been able to fix those inefficiencies. Do you grasp THAT concept?
Sure, and are you aware that OS X has been the victim of viruses, trojans, and worms? It certainly isn’t unvulnerable, despite what many zealots think.
Well, I don’t think that’s the point.
The number of viruses available is not an important measure. Windows viruses will always outnumber Mac viruses simply because there are
1/. More folk who have a deep working knowledge of Windows and its vulnerabilities.
2/. There is more money to be made from cracking Windows than cracking the Mac
3/. If you want to write a Mac virus, you’re script kiddie will need to buy a Mac; chances are he’d rather pick up a Windows machine (as most people still do).
No the real test for Vista, is how well it helps the user keep their machine virus, trojan and worm free; and as with XP, a lot of that will come down to good sense shown by the user.
Rayz I think you’re missing the point here too. Is not that the number of viruses on Windows OUTNUMBERS the number of viruses on the Mac, its that in six years of OSX there are NO viable viruses for the Mac. Zip, zero, zilch.
If we follow your train of thought there should be 2 or 3 Mac viruses for every 90 or so Windows viruses. I don’t know exactly how many Windows viruses there are that have been able to impact XP, but its pretty high. So if that is figure is 100000, there should be somewhere around 3000 viable Mac viruses out there. If that Windows figure was 10000, there should still be over 300 for the Mac.
Now remind me again, how many are there?
You’re missing the point. Only an idiot would argue that rwx attributes are better than ACLs, at a technical level. However, security is as much, or moreso, a human problem as it is a technical one.
Sane defaults, easy application of policy, defensive programming, code auditing, all of these things are important to a secure system, usually moreso than the technical sophistication of the underlying security model. Its much easier to come up with sane defaults or spot incorrect code when the security model is simple. Its much harder to do these things with NT’s buzzword-laden security model.
Can we say: We want to create hysteria to sell more software.
…but I have been following a debate on a Danish web site on ‘Mac vs PC’ and ever so often Mac users tend to draw the ‘Virus Card’ in this discussion and while I find this a tad easy to do, many PC users tend to respond by saying something like:
‘So many viruses and so many fixes’
…thereby implying that viruses pose no threat since there are plenty of ‘fixes’ to the problem, one of which being Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus.
The problem with this is not as much to accept that viruses exist and pose a problem – it’s pretty obvious it does… And it will so on the Mac, I’m sure…
It is for OS makers to face this battle head on and start thinking of their customers’ security and of code audits before starting to develop something new…
Design before coding, it’s called…
Actually, I’d like to see what happened if Microsoft took the same proactive approach to operating system security as the OpenBSD developers… Personally, I’m not sure where they’d begin
Fixes, schmixes. Fixes are only as good as the people who apply them. A secure OS is almost as good as a fix that applies itself before the vulnerability is found.
… unless you count deleting the contents of your home folder tree “not a viable threat” …
Have you bothered reading the article?
Quoting:
“Also, as has been the case with virtually all purported Mac OS X viruses documented by anti-virus firms thus far, there is no reliable vector for the spread of OSX.Macarena, meaning that a user would have to locate the source file, download it, compile the source and run the virus in order for any effect to occur.
As a result of these considerations, the OSX.Macarena has served less as a “warning shot” across the bow of Mac OS X than as a re-iteration of just how difficult it is to write an effective virus for the operating system.”
The point isn’t whether OSX.Macarena, itself, has “no reliable vector”. That’s one-dimensional thinking. Malware writers routinely take source code that’s posted online, and then modify it to not only do nasty things but also to take advantage of additional known exploits. So, OSX.Macarena, itself, isn’t the problem. The problem is what virus writers could mutate OSX.Macarena into.