There’s been a lot of recent talk about the virus MacDefender, a bit of clever Malware for MacOS that depends on the user installing it. There was a lot of “See, we told you so” from the pundits who have warned for ages that the wider adoption of MacOS would make it a bigger target for viruses. There was also a lot of “The sky is falling” by people on Facebook and Twitter who somehow missed the aforementioned pundits going on and on and one for years now.
Still, a new security update from Apple addresses this, with a “blacklist” of known Apple Malware (and yeah, it exists) and with warnings, etc.
Considering how long it’s taken some developers (including Apple) to patch other holes, this feels like a good thing. However, to borrow from the scaremongers, I can’t help but wonder how feasible such a solution will be as Mac Malware numbers climb from barely double digits to more “respectible” numbers.
(Oh, and for those on a shared network who want their Mac to also keep their PCs safe, I, for one, am a fan of ClamXav)
People believe what they want to believe. I remember having some kind of anti-virus software my dad (a software engineer) installed on my mac in the early 90s. People used to ask why if Macs are immune to viruses- we’d kind of mentally roll our eyes.
They existed even back then. But people are just silly about what they want to hear and believe sometimes.
Honestly, the biggest reason I remember any Mac users installing anti-virus software back in the 90’s (and into the early 2000’s) was as a courtesy to Windows users they emailed back and forth with regularly. Just because a given virus couldn’t run on the Mac platform didn’t mean you couldn’t pass it along as a file attachment to a Windows user. I think most of them eventually gave up the practice because the software was, generally, so poorly written that it made the Mac unstable or slowed it to a crawl.
(I remember Apple giving away a free copy of Virex anti-virus for OS X as a benefit of having a .Mac account with them, for example. But practically everyone who tried it wound up removing it after a month or two due to compatibility problems it created.)
I’m sure Macs will have more malware problems going forward, since the platform is starting to enjoy enough popularity to generate some interest among virus writers. But there are several good reasons I don’t think the problem will ever come close to what Windows users have to deal with. Primarily, OS X is a Unix-based OS where the regular user doesn’t use the OS all the time as a “root” user with unlimited access to all aspects of the system. Malware still has to request permission to install itself, meaning users have to be tricked into accepting the request. This is something Microsoft started doing too with Windows Vista and now 7, except with their platform not being based on a Unix core, they’re more susceptible to hackers writing code that works around their security system.
The fact that Apple has never really expressed interest in making Macs running OS X a “dominant platform” is another. Many times now, they’ve repeated the idea that their business model isn’t about outselling the number of copies of Windows in use. They’ve never really had more than about a 10% market-share. Selling Macs as 1 out of every 10 personal computers anyone ever purchases is PLENTY to keep a very successful business, but it still means a lot of virus developers are going to skip it deciding it’s not worth their effort to work on it vs. making the next big Windows virus.
It’s also a change in what is considered a virus. Remember the good ol’ days, when viruses just did stuff like permanently screw up your clock and turn your mouse pointer into genitalia? Now it’s all about hijacking your computer to mount a denial of service attack, or stealing your credit card info. It’s less about breaking your computer, more about stealing your information or breaking someone else’s.
I think the argument here, is that Mac runs on a series of Unix-based operating systems, and at this time Unix has NOT at all been the target of Hackers.
Heck, most tools to run various intrusions to run against windows, are for open source operating systems such as Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems. People haven’t been concentrating on Unix code for malicious purposes. I ran into this “MAC” myth at my last job. The “MAC” guy argued that this macdefender program was not a “virus” because it didn’t encroach itself based upon a “security patch” or an email.
This is ignorance. It was, I believe what is a social engineered virus. It required the user to install it. However, it’s purpose was to attack the OS. The truth stands behind the fact that the more Apple comes on top, and– the more people are using the systems, the more Hackers will attack it. Right now it’s just starting to gain the popularity, that no one saw coming. Business are still mainly using Windows, however, they are now starting to combine Macs into their networks. Hackers will find this an enticing avenue– (to gain “credibility” or whatever it is they are breaking into) it will be the next big thing. NO COMPUTER ON A NETWORK IS SAFE. It’s all a game.
Just my thoughts.