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Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

arstechnica.com

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Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#71

Post by daed »

Aethaeryn wrote: post #54
nathannecro wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of perhaps angering the Linux community here (I work on a Linux box too), may I suggest that's where Windows 8/WP7 is going? And at further risk of anger, I will suggest that Android has reached its peak. Evidence for point 1: Windows has such a large base of "desktop" applications with a larger base of active developers. Not only that, the majority of the world uses their standards for word processing, s…

> Windows has such a large base of "desktop" applications Unfortunately, Windows 8 tablets and the hypothetical Windows 8 phone that turns into a full desktop when you hook it into a monitor will both run on the ARM architecture. These are not binary compatible with existing Windows executables.[1] This means that any advantage that Windows has in quantity of applications does not translate to new types of devices. W…

Don't underestimate Intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5688/apple-ipad-2012-review/19

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#72

Post by btipling »

sliverstorm wrote: post #33

It's actually kind of fun when I occasionally get a virus. I always remove them by hand, piece by piece, and tracking them down is a learning experience. It's also amusing seeing some of the clever tricks they pull. Maybe it's time to get a Mac?

What do you learn? What have you ever done with that knowledge?

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#73

Post by signalsignal »

dinedal wrote: post #2

Whoa, it aborts infection if you have XCode installed? Is this just to prevent itself from infecting someone's computer that might be able to study it?

I personally have XCode installed at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode, so I ran the command at https://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan-downloader_osx_flash...

I got the "does not exist" result anyway, despite not having any of the software listed installed except for Java.

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#74

Post by jister »

superuser2 wrote: post #17
philaquilina wrote: post #4

As someone who used to sell Mac computers, I used to get asked the question "Is it true macs never get viruses?", to which I replied "No that's not true." (It was just an apple reseller store afterall so I was never compelled to bend the facts.) I'd try to explain the caveats a bit: a smaller market share and the unix based operating system requiring more permissions, yada yada, being "prohibitive" to an attack but s…

Yes, it is correct that Macs can get viruses. Where people get upset is when you generalize this to say that because >1 virus exists, OSX presents no significant advantage over Windows. Viruses are not a fact of life for Mac users. Talk to anyone who uses or services Macs; you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who's even seen an OSX virus. Whereas for Windows power-users, cleaning viruses for friends/parents is pract…

>> Viruses are not a fact of life for Mac users. Talk to anyone who uses or services Macs; you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who's even seen an OSX virus. Whereas for Windows power-users, cleaning viruses for friends/parents is practically a rite of passage.

That's because the market share of Mac is so small that no smart virus developer would even bother wasting their time creating one.

On the other hand, create a powerful virus for Windows and the next day your on CNN.

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#75

Post by simonw »

jister wrote: post #74
superuser2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is correct that Macs can get viruses. Where people get upset is when you generalize this to say that because >1 virus exists, OSX presents no significant advantage over Windows. Viruses are not a fact of life for Mac users. Talk to anyone who uses or services Macs; you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who's even seen an OSX virus. Whereas for Windows power-users, cleaning viruses for friends/parents is pract…

>> Viruses are not a fact of life for Mac users. Talk to anyone who uses or services Macs; you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who's even seen an OSX virus. Whereas for Windows power-users, cleaning viruses for friends/parents is practically a rite of passage. That's because the market share of Mac is so small that no smart virus developer would even bother wasting their time creating one. On the other hand, create…

These days I think you'd be much MORE likely to get press coverage for a virus that targets OS X than for one that targets Windows.

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#76

Post by buro9 »

alanh wrote: post #37

Of note — if Java is the attack vector, new Macs were not vulnerable by default as they don’t ship with Java installed anymore a/o 10.7 Lion. AFAIK, the biggest reason anyone would have Java is if you’re running Adobe products.

Well, it's a good thing that designers don't use Macs then.

Oh.

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#77

Post by rimantas »

jklp wrote: post #6

This both saddens and delights me, as it proves that Macs are now at a large enough market share that malware writers are willing to target that platform ...

Did not pre X versions of Mac OS have more viruses in the wild with much smaller market share?

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#78

Post by Tichy »

What annoys me is that I just found Java to be enabled in Firefox again, when I was pretty sure that I had disabled it before. I suspect that yesterdays update reinstalled it into Firefox. (I could be wrong, though - but I definitely remember starting Safari just for the sake of trying Minecraft, because it was the only one of my Browsers with Java enabled).

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#79

Post by bnr »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #41
philaquilina wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, no kidding. The majority of people are not going to stop on those two letters and consciously differentiate "virus" from "PC virus."

"A Mac isn’t susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers." Pretty clear.

Next sentence: "That’s thanks to built-in defenses in Mac OS X that keep you safe, without any work on your part."

I guess they should be "thanking" the general incompatibility with Windows binaries.

Re: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting

#80

Post by rbarooah »

nextparadigms wrote: post #66
pazimzadeh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A Mac isn’t susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers." Pretty clear.

No, it's not clear. It implies that the Mac can't get any viruses.

No. If they didn't qualify it with "PC" it would have that implication. By qualifying it, they make it unambiguous.
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