zdnet.com.au — The poof of concept Mac OS X virus, which was discovered late last week and dubbed Macarena, includes comments in the code that indicate the author had a difficult time creating the malware. In the source there is a comment where the author says "so many problems for so little code!"
Nov 6, 2006 View in Crawl 4
squeeveyNov 6, 2006
What is your breakdown on virus, trojan, and worm?The weakest link in security is the user, be it their password or blind clicking.
meatmcguffinNov 6, 2006
"As you might imagine, we are upset at OS X for not being more hardy against such viruses"Uh...it is hardy against such viruses. According to TFA there was no payload, it was difficult to write, it only propagates in a single directory, it doesn't spread outside of the host computer and is annoying but harmless.How much more proof do you need that OS X is pretty much virus proof?And no, it's not a marketshare thing. There have been proof of concepts for Linux and *nix and both have relatively low marketshares and the kudos of writing the first successful OS X virus would be something to try for.At some point you're going to have to concede that OS X, while not bulletproof, has rock solid security.
flowctrlNov 6, 2006
You forgot:"it doesn't actually work"As in, it doesn't propagate, which is really the crux of what a virus must do in order to be a threat.
xanderozNov 6, 2006
aaaw hell no... every virus has its "coding difficulties" to some extent. This is just some more Mac propaganda.
hangtownNov 6, 2006
If there was only three known concepts (not even in the wild) for windows, would anyone care about them? No. And No one cares about these either.
hangtownNov 6, 2006
You ever look at the definitions file for NAV for OS X? It's all windows stuff. Seriously. The point is not to pass on things that people running windows have passed on to you, or stuff off the internet that targets windows. None of those things has any effect on OS X.
Closed AccountNov 8, 2006
""How much more proof do you need that OS X is pretty much virus proof?"NOTHING is virus-proof."OSX is virus proof...Users are not
r3zonanceNov 8, 2006
"As in, it doesn't propagate, which is really the crux of what a virus must do in order to be a threat."Actually by definition to be a virus it MUST be able to propogate, like a real-life human virus.
ragonamuffinJan 26, 2007
"This is an Intel specific thing -- not Power PC," Ducklin said.typical.
murderoneMar 16, 2007
I find it funny that every single anti-Mac comment here has a negative rating.