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Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

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Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#91

Post by wfunction »

threeseed wrote: post #81
NelsonMinar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think Macs are virus-free because Apple spent years telling them were. Example ad, with John Hodgman as the Windows guy with a virus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Z386vXrt4

This notion existed far before that ad came out. It's a combination of a few things: (1) why bother investing time and resources for a platform with around 10% of users and (2) OSX has had strong security mechanisms e.g Gatekeeper, XProtect, App Sandbox. Windows 10 is much better but unfortunately not everyone is on that OS yet.

> Windows 10 is much better but unfortunately not everyone is on that OS yet.

Implying Windows 8.1 has security problems... what are they?

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#93

Post by valine »

Chaebixi wrote: post #88
valine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is you're not going to get malware if you open the wrong email or go to the wrong site like you could on Windows. The organizations with enough resources to hack iOS devices aren't interested in sending mass emails to steal bank account details. The average iOS user who keeps their device up to date simply doesn't have to worry about malware and suggesting otherwise is misleading.

> The organizations with enough resources to hack iOS devices aren't interested in sending mass emails to steal bank account details. The average iOS user who keeps their device up to date simply doesn't have to worry about malware and suggesting otherwise is misleading. Again, no. Here's another counterexample (which is recent and appears to have been active on the App Store for ~1yr): https://researchcenter.paloalt…

What you linked is basically an elaborate phishing scheme. The exploit allows the installation of non app store apps, but that doesn't mean the installed apps can escape the sandbox. The worst thing it can do is try to trick the user into entering passwords into the app's fields. As far as malware goes it's pretty benign.

There have been a handful of cases of iOS malware over the years, but no serious exploit has been widespread. For an exhaustive list see here: https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS

The most wide spread malicious apps are generally apps that access private apis but manage to get through Apple's review process and onto the App Store. They can be far reaching but again they can't breach the sandbox which means the absolute worst thing they do is upload your email address to some server or try to trick you into giving away your password. I still stand by my assertion that the average user doesn't need to worry about malware on iOS.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#94

Post by janekm »

Chaebixi wrote: post #88
valine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is you're not going to get malware if you open the wrong email or go to the wrong site like you could on Windows. The organizations with enough resources to hack iOS devices aren't interested in sending mass emails to steal bank account details. The average iOS user who keeps their device up to date simply doesn't have to worry about malware and suggesting otherwise is misleading.

> The organizations with enough resources to hack iOS devices aren't interested in sending mass emails to steal bank account details. The average iOS user who keeps their device up to date simply doesn't have to worry about malware and suggesting otherwise is misleading. Again, no. Here's another counterexample (which is recent and appears to have been active on the App Store for ~1yr): https://researchcenter.paloalt…

While that was an interesting article I didn't see it making any claims of having bypassed the sandbox, but "just" the DRM to allow install of pirated apps. The heavy sandboxing of every app on iOS is fundamentally different from any desktop OS. Sandboxing of desktop apps is still very far from a complete implementation.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#95

Post by watersb »

zeta0134 wrote: post #79
jmull wrote: post #34

> ...despite the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. I keep hearing this, but I never see evidence of these people. Is there a widespread belief that there's a widespread belief that Macs are immune from malware, despite few people who actually think this? Well, I'm sure such people exist, but there don't seem to be many, even on sites like macrumors and…

I worked at a Geek Squad for two years, so definitely take my experience with a grain of salt, but at least in the world of big box retail chains, this was quoted so often by my customers and clients I lost count. Most of my clients that came in with an infection on their Mac (sometimes just a rogue browser extension, but often an honest bit of malware) were genuinely surprised, having purchased the Mac originally be…

> the biggest thing that bothered me about the job was the pervasive idea that you could fix computer problems by buying additional software

O my god yes. I worked in corporate IT and Management was sold on more complexity all. the. time.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#96

Post by freehunter »

wfunction wrote: post #91
threeseed wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion existed far before that ad came out. It's a combination of a few things: (1) why bother investing time and resources for a platform with around 10% of users and (2) OSX has had strong security mechanisms e.g Gatekeeper, XProtect, App Sandbox. Windows 10 is much better but unfortunately not everyone is on that OS yet.

> Windows 10 is much better but unfortunately not everyone is on that OS yet. Implying Windows 8.1 has security problems... what are they?

Every OS has security problems, and every new OS incorporates fixes to them. If you're looking for specifics, a quick Google search can help there: http://www.csoonline.com/article/3044089/data-protection/the...

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#97

Post by bdcravens »

epistasis wrote: post #14

>the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. This is an area where it's really hard to extrapolate from my personal experience to the entire population, but is this really an accurate statement of many people's beliefs? I think what people actually think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac. In support of that, havi…

I suspect if you went into 100 Apple stores, and asked 100 of the bubbly sales persons with their cute little Apple shirts if Macs can get viruses, you'd get 50%+ to say no.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#98

Post by kenferry »

munin wrote: post #77
pdeuchler wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what is true is that it's extremely hard to execute arbitrary code without user knowledge on a Mac. Windows has thousands upon thousands of arbitrary code execution bugs where simply opening something like a pdf can allow an attacker to run arbitrary code as a privileged user. There are many defense mechanisms to this that are inherent to the design and implementation of Darwin/Mac OS.

> There are many defense mechanisms to this that are inherent to the design and implementation of Darwin/Mac OS. Do you have an example? Beyond the idea of user/root separation, which doesn't really do much for modern single user computers: https://xkcd.com/1200/

Sandboxing. All third party apps in the Mac app store, and many system apps. Safari, Mail, Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Contacts, Photos, Notes, and Reminders are all sandboxed.

I also really like how Gatekeeper ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatekeeper_(macOS) ) works – it quarantines documents such as word files, so that on first open you get a dialog pointing out that it's been downloaded. This is great, because you see the dialog very infrequently. I actually pay attention to it when it comes up.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#99

Post by nihonde »

Semaphor wrote: post #32
epistasis wrote: post #14

>the widespread belief that they are virus-free, Macs aren't immune from invasive and dangerous malware. This is an area where it's really hard to extrapolate from my personal experience to the entire population, but is this really an accurate statement of many people's beliefs? I think what people actually think is that the chances are much lower of encountering malware in the wild on a Mac. In support of that, havi…

My experience with tech illiterate people is that they think they can't get viruses on Mac or iOS. Viruses are a Windows-only thing in their minds.

The flip side of that is supposedly tech literate IT managers who insist that my company implement "industry standard" virus detection software on a fleet of MacBook Pros. The stupid cuts both ways.

Re: Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Victims for Years

#100

Post by kccqzy »

philfrasty wrote: post #48
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #44

Given that most people here would be best off not-hacked, what are the best ways (software/security tricks) to avoid malware on OSX?

BlockBlock is genius for preventing installation of persistent components to the OS. [1] https://objective-see.com/products/blockblock.html

I like the concept but I don't like the fact that BlockBlock needs to install a kernel extension. It says it does this to minter process creation. Why can't it do it with dtrace?

Example: https://github.com/kenorb/dtrace-tools#processes

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