Comments on: Mac OS X in hackers' crosshairs, report says

Symantec has warned that as Apple's market share rises, its operating system will come under increased attack.

At what percentage?

The Mac was not targeted when it was 3-5% share, now it is at
2% share.

Surely share would need to climb above 5% before it is targeted?
If not, what else has changed?

Or is the report FUD, and C|NET fudsters for promoting it?

Yes, FUD

I think your last line says it all. This from a company who's products are acknowledged by all (mostly former these days) users to cause more problems than they solve. Regarding the statement that OSX will come under increasing attack, well that's almost certainly true as to date there has not been a single actual virus or attack on the OS. What they refer to was more a proof of concept demonstration, not something that was ever launched as an attack. Symantec's desperation seems to be showing.

[DeusExMachina]

B.S.

What is the source for your belief that OSX has not been the
target of virus writers? Certainly it can not be the virus writers,
themselves, since OSX HAS been an active target for some time.
In fact, there are a number of open challenges in the virus writer
community for anyone who can successfully penetrate the OS.
The idea that the number of viruses is related to market share is
a myth that has been unmasked time and time again. One would
think people would know better by now.
Think OS9. Had about the same market penetration, and a hell
of a lot of viruses.

[Mystigo]

Timmy knows Unix.

..."it is now clear that the Mac OS is increasingly becoming a
target for the malicious activity that is more commonly
associated with Microsoft and various Unix-based operating
systems."...

Hey Symantec. The Mac *is* a Unix-based operating system.
That might be helpful to know.

What a stupid story...

I won't even use Norton on my Windows machines. I wouldn't listen to a word that company has to say.

The whole story is based on the "market share" myth. OS X (based on UNIX) simply does not have the same mountain of vulnerabilities as does the Windows OS.

Sure, maybe one day "hackers" will figure something out, but until then... quit with the alarmist B.S. headlines.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Not buying it

Symantec has a vested interest in getting people to buy it's software so this news release looks more like an effort to scare up some new sales than a true new problem.

It'd be foolish to say that OS X isn't vulnerable to exploitation by virus writers but I don't see anything to support a sudden new interest in writing viruses for OS X either.

[Andrew J Glina]

Slight Bias

This story is silly. A security company going on about a new virus threat is like a car company discussing the pros and cons of a second car.

Even so, I do think that Macs are protected by their rarity. On a world market they are barely a blip, probably less than 1%. (Anyone with the exact stat and a link feel free to argue with me!)

[brasten]

Numbers from Memory

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe Apple's
worldwide numbers last year were in the 1.5% range

But according to Forbes a few days ago, Apple's Q4 US market
share hit 2.9%, up from 2.2% in Q3 and 2.1% in Q2.
Furthermore, Forbes is predicting Apple will hit 5% globally
"soon", which I believe they mean either this quarter or next.

[MadKiwi]

Choice of words...

"As Apple increases its market share, it will be a legitimate target."

There is no such thing as a "legitimate target" in terms of security attacks and as long as authors keep using such ill-considered terms they will contribute, in some small way, to the ethos of the hacker.

Overall the article was alarmist BS.

[NutMac]

What protection then?

So what Mac OS X-specific protections, excluding those addressed by Apple's automatic monthly security updates (and its built-in firewall), do Symantec's security products provide?

Symantec, please list every single vulnerabilities (not concepts, but real ones that exists in the wild) that exists in Mac OS X 10.3.9 with built-in firewall turned on that your Norton Anti Virus protects against.

This Story = Symantec Marketing Brochure

Symantec, you lost me once you failed to realize that Mac OSX is built on unix.

PC Pundits Incapable of Acknowledging Reality

I find it a frail argument, on the part of many Windows-loving
pundits, that the Macintosh platform has not experienced a virus
in over ten years just because of its relatively small market
share. Symantec has on record, over 100,000 virues/trojans/
worms. Apple's marketshare is only 3%. So wouldn't you expect
that about 3,000 of those virus/trojans/worms would be written
for the Mac? And yet the reality is, there is NOT A SINGLE known
piece of malware for the Macintosh OS X platform going into its
fifth year of the existence.

True, Apple and other companies should be actively plugging
security holes, but the hesitation of many PC pundits to switch
to a Macintosh is more a matter of pride and foolishness than
good reason. It's like saying "A car from Honda could breakdown
so I'll keep buying cars from Ford."

Idiocrity begets Mediocrity.

[Andrew J Glina]

PC pundit reporting for duty

You might see it as a frail argument, but it is the way it is. Virus / trojan / worm writers today rely on the internet, and these beasties only have a good chance of spreading if the computer that it randomly targets (via either an IP or an EMail) is the same as the source. Thus going for anything other than the dominant would mean that the spread would be too slow. If the spread is too slow then a patch / countermeasure will be available before much damage is done, and it also increases the chance of the cracker being found.

Besides, most virused / trojans / worms are just mods of previous ones, so the 100,000 number is just more scare mungering by Symantec. This is also why the crackers stick to a platform - they are too lazy to do anything too hard, especially something that might achieve nothing but jail time.

Futhermore, attacking the nixes (yes I know that MacOS stole BSD so calm down) brings down servers, attacking Windows brings down millions, but what would attacking MacOS achieve? When was the last OS/2 virus? When was the last BeOS virus? (Don't laugh - I still get hits on my website from BeOS and OS/2 users.)

Enjoy your minor market share while it lasts. Once those PC pundits get over their pride, foolishness and love of software try to not feel too stupid for blowing the MacOS trumpet so much and so loudly.

Sammy

I think that Rohan should call DIP so that we can talk about this MAC situation

[Greg Sparkman]

Being a target doesn't mean "being a victim"

Hey, Apple's made the big time: they are now "legitimate"
targets for malware according to Symantic. Being a target,
however, doesn't necessarily mean OSX is a susceptible to
damage as, say, Windows. I am not blaming MS; I blame the
virus writers. But OSX is not as vulnerable as Windows,
regardless of market share.

[m.meister]

Suspicious Source

I'd maybe believe this story if it came from someone that did not
have a virus protection business or other some other obvious
bias.

It's like the research that Microsoft pays for that says WIndows is
more secure than Linux (or whatever other OS). The results are
suspect.

I'm more disappointed that CNet doesn't at least investigate
further to uncover the obvious conflict of interest. Instead, they
(as well as many other organizations) simply parrot the press
release from Symantec.

These companies need to be called out for their questionable
actions.

Its been said before, but needs to be said again

Well, apart from the obvious marketing ploy that is not-so-subtly hidden in this article, there is one other innacuracy that always strikes a nerve with me. "Opener". Opener is a shell-script that creates a user for you, wipes some logs, and does a few other handy things. Heres the catch: You either have to sudo it, or have root privleges (namely, a uid of 0). So basically what that means is that if you have root on a mac, then yes, you root it. whoopdyfrickingdo. And the sad thing is the press had a field day over it. It was written by a few guys who frequent mac grey-hat hacker BBS's (particularly Freaky's), and had some time on their hands.