Monday, April 19, 2010

Are Mac owners and some admins overconfident?

According to an article by John E. Dunn of TechWorld, "Apple antivirus company Intego has discovered a backdoor malware attack targeting Mac users." Dunn said the attack is:

Able to infect both PowerPC and newer Intel-based Macs thanks to being written as a universal binary, OSX.HellRTS.D sets out to take complete control of an infected machine, setting itself up as a server capable of doing pretty much what it wants. This will include, downloading software, spewing email, set up screen sharing, accessing files on the Mac, and copying anything it finds on the clipboard.

The concept of security by obscurity has been used by Mac owners and system administrators as an excuse for not protecting computers. According to security expert Charlie Miller, Apple continues to tell users that its OS is safer than Windows. Miller has claimed that it has 20 zero day security flaws. Security by obscurity is not security. Reportedly Miller said, "Mac OS X is like living in a farmhouse in the country with no locks, and Windows is living in a house with bars on the windows in the bad part of town."

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