zdnet.com.au — 18 months ago Symantec said: "Mac OS is increasingly becoming a target for the malicious activity that is more commonly associated with Microsoft" but on Wednesday it quietly admitted the prediction was wrong.
Sep 28, 2006 View in Crawl 4
chimaera2005Sep 28, 2006
@spectre_25gtHe doesn't need to back it up with a link..."OSX DOES has viruses..."Do you need any more proof?
uownedgeSep 28, 2006
They're handling it pretty well so far. I agree about half way with you both on the market share issue. The thing is, it's only a small piece of the puzzle. Too many people are saying "Oh, well, there are no viruses for OS X because only a few people use it."...that's just as wrong as saying that it's perfectly flawless. I also agree that if it were just as easy to infect an OS X box as a Windows box, it would have already been done, if nothing else for the fame of doing so.So far, all we really have are controlled tests, using only exploits found in non-critical parts of OS X (sorry, SSHD isnt a critical part of the OS, it's a tool that can be disabled, and is disabled by default). Granted, there are definitely a ton of Windows boxes out there, I think a lot of folks hear that Apple has "2% of the market share" and picture a grand total of five Mac users in the world, when in reality there are Millions. Again, millions of people are an audience worth targeting for advertising, and with Apple now running on the Intel platform, it would be all the more easier to port malware over, *IF* it were as easy to infect the system.
Closed AccountSep 28, 2006
The prediction is wrong due to the fact the OS sales are still not taking off.
porkstackerSep 28, 2006
It is quite apparent you are an ignorant cornhole.
stasis88Sep 28, 2006
I dont get how these mac biatches say market share doesnt mean anything, what the F are you on??? It means EVERYTHING. If the US goverment and just about every single corporation in the US (not to mention many other countries) used macs there would be plenty of virii. Viruses are written for a reason, usually to steal data, NOBODY CARES ABOUT ANY DATA YOU MAC FAGS HAVE, THEY CAN FIND THEIR OWN PORN AND MUSIC!!!SIMPLY PUT, IF THE TARGET DOESNT EXIST WHY WOULD YOU ATTACK IT.
uownedgeSep 28, 2006
Once again, you're being ignorant. Market share hardly means everything. It's a much smaller piece of the pie than actual security in fact. There are millions of Mac users out there, and since it would seem that marketing is so important to you, I'm sure you'll agree that millions of people are plenty enough to pique an advertiser's interest, no?The fact is, it's much harder to infect a *nix based OS based on the security model. If you truly are interested (I suspect you aren't), go read up on how it works. It works something a bit more like this. [Windows = Majority audience + easy to break into] [Mac = Large but minority audience + difficult to break into]. NOW you're on the right track to how market share effects what systems are being broken into. Obviously, despite being the minority audience, Macs would still be attacked if it was so very easy to do. Furthermore, the market share argument is valid only, ONLY, when you're strictly talking about marketing, and not system security. When you're comparing the security and stability of two systems, market share plays no roll at all. You're then strictly discussing how the systems are built, and how they are protected (If you know what you're talking about -- if you're still talking about market share in that type of discussion, you have a lot of reading to do).
diggnationdevonSep 28, 2006
I don't care if Vista turns out to be insecure or not, I sure as hell am not installing any of Symantec's crappy software on it.
methodshopSep 28, 2006
Besides a couple Trojan Horses, I can't remember the last time I saw a Mac virus. When was the last Mac OS virus anyway? 1987?
methodshopSep 28, 2006
i remember back in the OS 7 or 8 days I ran Norton Utilities on my PowerMac 8500 and it deleted all my files. i was so pissed. i think it was a bug when HFS+ formatted disks first came out. anyway Norton wiped my hard drive during finals week of my sophomore year in college. i will always have a very deep hate for Symantec. always.anyone need an anti-Symantec logo?<a class="user" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/methodshop/255172139/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/methodshop/255172139/</a>
brewno2kSep 29, 2006
I'd love to see Bill Gates (or whoever is in charge of MS in a few years) imitate Steve's attitude and say "Vista was the last backwards-compatible system we had. It's time to evolve, our new system was built from scratch with revolutionary secury system", pretty much like OS9-OSX migration. Forcing people to migrate to the new system.I still don't understand how a multibillionaire company like MS (that has the power and money to get the best software developers in the world, best designers etc) is still making s**tty, insecure, poorly-imitated OSs. Take Ubuntu as an example: free software developed by a small community and now one of the best OS.Vista is nothing more than XP with transparencies covered with a mosquito net. Surely they'll block the big bugs but viruses are still going to pass through it.
grumpyrainSep 29, 2006
pathy is correct about blaming the users for mindlessly clicking download on whatever. Malware writers will always target the platform most likely to give them critical mass. Macs have four distinct advantages in this regard (in no particular order).1) They have a smaller install base, and so are less likely to be targeted.2) Their security is well designed (no default everyone to admin/root) and so it is harder to design malware that is capable of exploiting the system.3) Windows is forced to maintain dumb design frameworks for compatibility reasons.4) There is a hostility towards Microsoft and other companies that by their own fanboys can't do anything wrong.However the majority install base = majority of focussed attack argument put by others is nonesense, simply consider Apache vs IIS.
arlene1985Dec 1, 2007
This happens with every Operating System which becomes widespread and popular. Nobidy attacked Windows before Microsoft made it a default OS for millions of us, mere users. Same applies to Linux, which is going to be under sever attacks as long as its popularity increases together with usability and accessibility. Unfortunately, neither XoftSpy from ParetoLogic <a class="user" href="http://xoftspyantispyware.blogspot.com">http://xoftspyantispyware.blogspot.com</a> nor Webroot's Spy Sweeper <a class="user" href="http://spy-sweeper-download.blogspot.com">http://spy-sweeper-download.blogspot.com</a> work under Linux/Unix systems or MACs.