Backdoor Trojan For Windows Ported To Mac OS 263
An anonymous reader writes "A Remote Access Trojan (RAT) for Windows, known as darkComet, has been ported to Mac OS X. The new backdoor Trojan is not yet finished, but it could be indicative of more underground programmers attempting to take advantage of Apple's growing market share."
Or... (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I insane? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bravo slashdot. A new low.
Re:It was just a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
The medical model for disease works for computer viruses too. You need both a vulnerability and a vector. The number of potential hosts increases the attractiveness of the host for a virus (whether through natural evolution or malice aforethought.) The number of hosts also increases the vector span. But there still has to be a vulnerability!
Similarly, we need for the countermeasures to be demonstrated as both "safe and effective." My personal experience with Mac OS 9 and earlier anti-virus applications is that they were not very "safe", they caused a lot of problems. For OS X, I'm waiting for some reasonable demonstration of "effective" based on real-world threats. Predictions of doom from anti-virus vendors (who most certainly have a vested financial interest) that are not substantiated with real-world experiences are not persuasive to me.
By the way, what is the measured track record for successful penetrations observed by third parties, i.e. "in the real world", for both Win 7 and Mac OS? The argument that "Mac OS claims to be secure ... [by] not targeted as much" rings hollow to me. You'd think if vulnerabilities exist in a platform that is growing by leaps and bounds at the -high end- of the market would have garnered some successful penetrations, if nothing else than for the "glory of hacking the supposedly secure platform."
dave
Re:It was just a matter of time (Score:2, Insightful)
Except it doesn't. Biological viruses are not driven by self-aware controllers with a financial interest, nor do they evolve in the biological sense.
But apart from that, a sound analogy.
Badly formed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti Troll missiles locked on.
As much as people want to think otherwise, there is a direct causal link between marketshare and the amount of malware for a given OS./
Sitation please? If you are going to make such a statement, please site studies and facts. In fact there is NO direct causal link, and you are abusing the statement without facts and citations. That said, I would agree that I think there is causal link, but you are further abusing the statement by not citing the magnitude, which is where proper citations would help. Windows has thousands of variants of malware. Mac OS X is in the dozens still, if that. No system is completely secure, and there will always be attempts to compromise a system, but saying ONE piece of malware suddenly brings Apple crashing in flames and "zOMG Mac OS X is teh insecurez they will be pwned!" is the worst kind of hyperbole imaginable.
The zealotry was on show yesterday in the OS X article where it was stated that OS X is more insecure than windows
I looked for an article yesterday on slashdot and the only article I found was one about how Apple is inviting security experts to look at their system. Sounds like a pretty responsible thing if you ask me, and I found no mention of this yesterday. Perhaps you'd like to review your citations?
People persecuting MS for poor security are living in the past.
Again, no citations. You sound like a MS schill. MS still has a poor record, period. Sure it's getting better but it's massive exaggeration to try to say that somehow MS gets a pass because 6 years ago they were utterly shitty shitty shitty, and suddenly now it's okay because they have improved to stinky farty smelly.
Hopefully as marketshare increases they will take responsibility and secure their OS, if for no other reason than to maintain their image.
How odd, Marketshare doesn't seem to have an effect on how secure an operating system is, because 90% marketshare never encouraged Microsoft. I do hope security remains forefront on Apple's mind, because they are the underdogs here and it will only continue to help them to be focused on security as they continue to compete for more marketshare, but here's another example of how off kilter your rant is.
Now I'm just waiting to be modded troll....
You will be, but just one more thing to nail the coffin shut. This is a goddamn fucking TROJAN HORSE!!! Do you know what that is? Do you remember the goddamn story of Troy? There's good movie released a few years back you should watch it. A virus is something getting in without your action or knowledge, but a Trojan horse requires the user perform an action, and the way it gets in is simply by deceiving a human being. You can inject a trojan horse into any system and hope to own it, Windows, Mac OS, UNIX, or other, just send the admin an email and hope he's stupid enough to open the attachment and do the work for you! You can't put a malware scan on the brain of an uneducated admin. It's not the fault of the OS makers if the admin is uneducated enough to open a file that they should not trust.
Like many rants before it, your rant is like buying the most secure home security system in the world, then giving the key to a random person on the street for safe keeping, and complaining to the security company when your house is robbed.