Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
arstechnica.com
Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#2Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#3Malware is so rare on the Mac that Apple set up an entire web page to deal with the one trojan currently known to be impacting Mac users.
Macs aren't more secure than Windows machines, but they're still undeniably safer (at least for normal people).
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#4As an IT professional, I’m honestly not sure how to feel about this.
On the one hand, it’s great that all the variants of MacDefender currently out there will be neutralized.
On the other hand, we’re surely going to see new flavors that go undetected by the update. Apple is getting into the anti-virus game, and potentially starting an arms race. But, what else could Apple do in this situation?
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#5As an IT professional, I’m honestly not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, it’s great that all the variants of MacDefender currently out there will be neutralized. On the other hand, we’re surely going to see new flavors that go undetected by the update. Apple is getting into the anti-virus game, and potentially starting an arms race. But, what else could Apple do in this situation?
I think the key here is that this is a trojan installed by the user. Education is the greatest weapon against this type of attack -- not trying to keep up with users reinfecting themselves with each variant.
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#6heh, given that Apple was previously directing staffers not to acknowledge it, when I read this headline all I could think of was Jobs telling a press conference "OSX now has malware. This is a new, must-have feature that will revolutionise the industry!"...
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#7Wow, check out the removal steps in the kb article. Quit the app using Activity Monitor then delete from /Applications. Clearly we have a long way to go...
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#8heh, given that Apple was previously directing staffers not to acknowledge it, when I read this headline all I could think of was Jobs telling a press conference "OSX now has malware. This is a new, must-have feature that will revolutionise the industry!"...
Apple is pretty damn careful about not making press releases until they have a clear, concise and informative statement to make. Staffers were likely instructed not to address it because the official response was forthcoming. Yes, it's a slow response, but not worth attributing to malice.
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#9Malware is so rare on the Mac that Apple set up an entire web page to deal with the one trojan currently known to be impacting Mac users. Macs aren't more secure than Windows machines, but they're still undeniably safer (at least for normal people).
What browser or operating system can you, by simply clicking an image in Google Images, have an installer pop up basically just waiting for a password to have malware everywhere?
I don't really buy the claim that OS X is intrinsically more secure than Windows these days.
Re: Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update
#10Malware is so rare on the Mac that Apple set up an entire web page to deal with the one trojan currently known to be impacting Mac users. Macs aren't more secure than Windows machines, but they're still undeniably safer (at least for normal people).
“Malware is so rare on the Mac that Apple set up an entire web page to deal with the one trojan currently known to be impacting Mac users.”
I read that and I thought Apple had set up a top-level page. I then saw it is an article in Apple’s knowledge base.
As far as I know, this is the same thing Microsoft does for distinguished malware: articles in the knowlegde base. E.g., here is an old one for Blaster: