Mac users be on your guard.

[Deleted User]

sweetstudent wrote: »

If a Mac user feels the need to download Active-X then they deserve the malware or whatever it is, since AFAIK Active-X is a windows only plugin!

Somebody correct me if i am wrong here pls!

What if it was labelled as a Quicktime one, would it really make that much difference?

Lum

If I wanted to steal credit card details I'd choose to aim for Windows users as I could harvest an awful lot more cards, and just skim £10 or £20 off each one which would probably go unnoticed. I'd make more money than if I were taking £100 or £200 off a smaller number of Mac users as that would get noticed and reversed. I'd be more likely to get caught too.

It's also worth noting that Windows has been around for an awful lot longer than OSX has, and the virus writers have more experience programming for Windows. Programming for XP isn't that dissimilar to programming for Win95, whereas OSX was written from scratch.

So for me I could write my new credit card stealing virus quite easily using my existing skills, and get a large number of cards, or I could buy a Mac and spend lots of time learning my way around the workings of the OS and how to develop for it, then write my card stealing virus and only get a small number of cards. For a lot of people this simply isn't worth the effort.

Though now that the Mac market share is growing, some enterprising virus writers are seeing the potential. In the Windows market you have to compete against the big boys like Conficker (which actually removes rival spyware products from systems it infects) wheras Mac users are a virtually untapped, and growing, market with few competitors.

Marty_J

Lum wrote: »

If I wanted to steal credit card details I'd choose to aim for Windows users as I could harvest an awful lot more cards, and just skim £10 or £20 off each one which would probably go unnoticed. I'd make more money than if I were taking £100 or £200 off a smaller number of Mac users as that would get noticed and reversed. I'd be more likely to get caught too.

I guess that's another way to look at it.

It's also worth noting that Windows has been around for an awful lot longer than OSX has, and the virus writers have more experience programming for Windows. Programming for XP isn't that dissimilar to programming for Win95, whereas OSX was written from scratch.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Windows", but Mac OS X was released 6 months before Windows XP.

If you mean Windows in general, then Mac OS was released a year before it.

Though now that the Mac market share is growing, some enterprising virus writers are seeing the potential. In the Windows market you have to compete against the big boys like Conficker (which actually removes rival spyware products from systems it infects) wheras Mac users are a virtually untapped, and growing, market with few competitors.

This is exactly what people have been saying for years now, and what has so far failed to come to pass. I don't know what sort of savvy net-criminals pass up the opportunity to victimise a growing section of the computer market who have a higher than average income, and most of whom have no kind of anti-virus or malware protection whatsoever, but apparently the world is full of them.

Maybe I should go on Dragon's Den?

sweetstudent

anewhope wrote: »

What if it was labelled as a Quicktime one, would it really make that much difference?

The only time i would download any plugin would be from Apple itself or from a credible website, such as BBC News! Or i would search the Quicktime plugins on the quicktime site!

Lum

Marty_J wrote: »

I'm not sure what you mean by "Windows", but Mac OS X was released 6 months before Windows XP.

If you mean Windows in general, then Mac OS was released a year before it.

I'm referring mainly to the Win32 API which has been around since Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993. While the API has evolved and gained new functionality over the years, programming for it is roughly the same and the skills of it's programmers (both legitimate and illegitimate) have evolved alongside it. (You could argue that the Win32 API is an evolution of the original Windows API from 1985 but then we'd be getting silly, however it is still around to this day)

Mac OSX, AIUI is a completely new OS rather than an evolution of OS9. While an app written for, say System 6 (which is where most of my Mac experience lies) will most likely run fine under OS9. It needs emulation to run under OSX, so the virus writers are going to need to learn a whole new OS and set of APIs

This is exactly what people have been saying for years now, and what has so far failed to come to pass. I don't know what sort of savvy net-criminals pass up the opportunity to victimise a growing section of the computer market who have a higher than average income, and most of whom have no kind of anti-virus or malware protection whatsoever, but apparently the world is full of them.

Well it is starting to happen, slowly. Whilst I agree that the original story is a bit overblown (and personally I think Graham Cluely is a bit of an !!!! who loves the sound of his own voice, and his AV product is terrible) it'll happen as macs continue to gain market share and MS slowly wean people off running as full administrators (they've pulled this one off quite well in Vista, most people haven't even noticed)

Another factor in this is that some Mac users love to preach about how much more secure their platform is, and encourage the typical home user to go and buy them. I'm talking about the kind of user who thinks they get a good deal at PC World, and clicks Ok to every damn prompt that comes up here. Once there is a significant installed base of this kind of user Macs will suddenly be a lot easier to infect. Right now the only people buying Macs are the people who are aware of the issues, or people who still think that PCs can't run Photoshop as well as a Mac can, and don't use the system for anything other than Photoshop and Quark anyway.

Marty_J

Lum wrote: »

I'm referring mainly to the Win32 API which has been around since Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993. While the API has evolved and gained new functionality over the years, programming for it is roughly the same and the skills of it's programmers (both legitimate and illegitimate) have evolved alongside it. (You could argue that the Win32 API is an evolution of the original Windows API from 1985 but then we'd be getting silly, however it is still around to this day)

Mac OSX, AIUI is a completely new OS rather than an evolution of OS9. While an app written for, say System 6 (which is where most of my Mac experience lies) will most likely run fine under OS9. It needs emulation to run under OSX, so the virus writers are going to need to learn a whole new OS and set of APIs

Getting a program to run on a particular OS is the easy part. The hard part is exploiting that OS's vulnerabilities, which aren't the same on Windows 3.1 as they are on Vista.

OS X has been on public release for eight years now, so virus writers have had plenty of time to learn how to use it. There's no shortage of software for the Mac, so no one else seems to have any trouble. Malware attacks on the Mac have consisted of renaming "Nasty virus.dmg" to "Free !!!!!!.dmg" and asking the user to install it.

Another factor in this is that some Mac users love to preach about how much more secure their platform is, and encourage the typical home user to go and buy them. I'm talking about the kind of user who thinks they get a good deal at PC World, and clicks Ok to every damn prompt that comes up here. Once there is a significant installed base of this kind of user Macs will suddenly be a lot easier to infect. Right now the only people buying Macs are the people who are aware of the issues, or people who still think that PCs can't run Photoshop as well as a Mac can, and don't use the system for anything other than Photoshop and Quark anyway.

Macs aren't a little niche market. Here in the US, lots of people use them; they certainly aren't relegated to use solely by Mac fanatics.

And in some ways, at the minute, Mac users are even more clued in when it comes to security problems, as when there's a new threat to the Mac, it hits the headlines. A new virus for Windows (or old virus as this one is) is just another day on the farm.

Lum

Marty_J wrote: »

OS X has been on public release for eight years now, so virus writers have had plenty of time to learn how to use it. There's no shortage of software for the Mac, so no one else seems to have any trouble. Malware attacks on the Mac have consisted of renaming "Nasty virus.dmg" to "Free !!!!!!.dmg" and asking the user to install it.

The vast majority of Windows malware gets in in exactly the same way, only it's more like Free !!!!!!.jpg.vbs

Macs aren't a little niche market. Here in the US, lots of people use them; they certainly aren't relegated to use solely by Mac fanatics.

Last set of figures I could find (May 2009) show 87.75% Windows and 9.81% Mac. That's pretty niche in my book and certainly not worth the skill and effort required to find genuine exploitable vulnerabilities

And in some ways, at the minute, Mac users are even more clued in when it comes to security problems, as when there's a new threat to the Mac, it hits the headlines. A new virus for Windows (or old virus as this one is) is just another day on the farm.

When an actual vulnerability is exploited on Windows you hear about it. Blaster, Sasser, Conficker and so on. All the crap spyware that gets bundled with the "1001 free smileys" packs you see advertised on banner ads is indeed just another day on the farm and your average Mac user isn't going to fall for that stuff.

Marty_J

Lum wrote: »

Last set of figures I could find (May 2009) show 87.75% Windows and 9.81% Mac. That's pretty niche in my book and certainly not worth the skill and effort required to find genuine exploitable vulnerabilities

Even a big infection such as Conficker infects around 4% of PCs worldwide (according to IBM). Most viruses infect significantly less. A piece of malware that successfully infected a decent number of Mac users would be more than worth it.

Given that the Mac lost (or won depending on how you look at it....lol) the Pwn2Own contest the past two years in a row, it would suggest that there are people out there prepared to put in the time looking for vulnerabilities in OS X.

Lum

4% of 9.81% is a very tiny number though. Again my point as to why Macs aren't worth targetting yet.

Strider590

Marty_J wrote: »

I've never entirely bought that argument. There's an enormous disparity between the amount of malware on OS X and on Windows. Infecting Windows is just easier than infecting OS X. Despite the enormous growth in Apple's market share over the past few years, there haven't been any widespread malware threats.

If I wanted to steal credit card details, I would choose a Mac user's over a Windows user's any day. Mac users, on average, have more money

Window's is attacked for more simply because of it's global dominance in the OS market, when these script kiddies want to show off their "1337" hacking skills they pick on Windows because it will affect far more people..... Else it'd be like flying a plane into a disused WW2 bunker in the middle of a sheep field.