Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

iTTACK! Apple mud slinging

ben | 22.02.2006 00:02 | Analysis | Technology | World

Something strange appears to be happening, the last week has seen three stories about so-called security flaws in relation to the Mac OSX operating system. Macs have previously been immune to the kind of nonsense which Windows users have grown up with so what is going on?

One article today reports that "A new critical threat to Apple's OS X operating system has surfaced that could allow attackers to compromise a system without any user interaction. The flaw affects the way that the operating system handles meta data for ZIP archives. The application considers the files to be safe and will automatically open them, allowing attackers to embed script code that will be executed without the user's knowledge."

The website Heise.de apparently offers a demonstration of how an email is able to exploit the flaw.

The vulnerability report follows last week's story about two OS X 'worms' which made headlines around the world. After years of having no serious threats to the operating system, have hackers turned their hands to attacking Macs or is something else going on?

Despite widespread publicity, few articles pointed out that one of these so called threats was a proof-of-concept worm which was produced to demonstrate a potential weekness in the way older version of OSX handle bluetooth wireless connects by default. Any user could change the settings to remove the potential threat and Apple changes the defaults after the potential exploit was revealed. This isn't a new threat, the exploit is over a year old and has been patched ages ago. Further more, it is not actually 'in the wild', ie. malicious software actually found to be infecting users, it's just code produced to prove a point. In other words, there is no story!

Likewise with the so-called OSX virus. If it were true it would be a big story perhaps since no true viruses exist for the OSX. However, this lab produced trojan certainly isn't a virus as it requires user intervention in order to perform it's task. It was alleged that the worm would propagate via iChat instant messaging systems but users would have to actively give permission for the program to run and provide their admin password for it to have any effect.

So how comes these stories are doing the rounds? Two reasons spring to mind. Many many windows users have been abandoning the PC in favor of Macs. This has as much to do with the success of the iPod as it does the Macs inherently superior operating system and users being fed up with malicious infections under windows. It could be that anti-virus software companies are seeking to cash in on a new market as ex-windows users imagine they need similar protect to that required under their old buggy system.

However, another possibility springs to mind. Microsoft is loosing out to Apple's OSX and other inherently more secure unix based operating systems such as GNU/Linux and BSD. Microsoft will soon be releasing a new version of windows and is currently running a huge multi million dollar international advertising campaign to pursued people to buy the new version of their office suite. It certainly benefits Microsoft for people to imagine that OSX suffers from similar problems as Windows so perhaps these stories are getting a little help.

Whatever is really behind the stories, the fact is that we are talking about few potential but unrealistic risks compared to over 100,000 viruses and malware found on PCs running windows. So, it's probably a good idea to wonder why the media is making such a big deal out of it.

ben

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. Thanks for the heads up — Simon
  2. It's news because it's rare — DF
  3. It's not rare and not news... — john

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech