And sometimes this part brings unexpected and unpleasant Titanic! But what malware is still there? But we need your help. So take care of your own security by yourselves — at least take the first step and change your attitude to Mac protection! Wow, that was quick! Anyone remember Blaster? Unlike most folks, I was lucky enough to be traveling again recently jabbed, boosted, masked and social distancing, of course: — this time to Dubai, one of my fave places on the planet, to which I normally get to at least once a year during non-covid times.
Such fissures are a rather rare volcanic phenomenon, but this one […]. Last week, I was in the unusual out-of-the-ordinary European country called Liechtenstein. It was also amazing. Plenty… First amazement: it turns out that in Turkey there are around ancient theaters!
Some well-preserved; others — less so. Well now I do…. Onward — down the volcanic spine of the Kamchatka peninsula… Next stop volcano — Tolbachik, similarly A-list just like Klyuschevskaya Sopka, Avachinsky near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky , and Khodutka and Ilynsky in the south.
Flying around in a helicopter is always a pleasure; flying around in a helicopter in the fall — along a shoreline, in clement weather — that pleasure is multiplied several-fold. And that includes down in sunny Turkey… Oh my glorious! Is there any Mac OS X-specific malware around? First up — frontline reports. So what exactly gets caught? A few words on the most interesting: Backdoor.
Callme — spreads in the body of a specially crafted MS Word document, which when launched installs a backdoor in the system via a vulnerability. This gives the attacker remote access to the system.
Leap-A was more insidious, spreading through the iChat application. RSPlug-A, This nasty bit of malware disguised itself as a video codec on sites with pornographic material. Once installed and activated, the Trojan communicated with a remote server to search for data, track Internet browsing history and log keystrokes. The scam worked by using pop-ups to alert users to supposed infections on their system, at which point they were urged to immediately download an antivirus suite or update to remove the threat.
The endgame for MacDefender was to steal credit card information. Read more. Myles Keough is a seasoned IT Executive focused on business and technology consulting. A deep understanding of small to medium size business economics, growth challenges, and business planning processes. A history of leveraging technology investments to reduce overhead and increase revenue. Time for a better IT services relationship? Everyone got them wrong too — apparently they were Trojans!
You see? You can't have it both ways. You can't redefine the word "Trojan" so it helps your argument that Macs haven't been hit by viruses… and then continue to claim that Windows is overwhelmed by viruses. I'm not aware of anybody in the anti-virus industry who says that malware has to require no user interaction to be considered a virus. A Trojan horse is a seemingly legitimate computer program that has been intentionally designed to disrupt and damage computer activity.
Importantly, Trojan horses do not replicate or have any mechanism of spreading themselves. They have to be deliberately planted on a website, or accidentally shared with another user, or spammed out to email addresses. There is nothing inside a Trojan's code to distribute themselves further to other victims. As such, it is comparable to an email or instant messaging worm on the Windows platform.
Worms are a sub category of the group of malware known as viruses. But you're right — most of the malware we see for Mac is in the form of Trojan horses. Social engineering is what tricks users into running these Trojans. And that works just as well with Mac users as Windows users. The World Peace Day trojan is not not included. It infected early Macs. It spawned an interesting discussion of the ethics if installing unauthorized softwware on computers for which the individual had neither responsibility nor relationship.
Apple has had some great some great products come out over the years across various platforms and no im not just heading toward the old cliche of market share making you worth the hit but has become a bigger target and is growing. The prime reason to have AV software on a Mac is to eliminate the possibility that you will pass on malware to Windows users. Sophos is really pushing Mac vulnerabilities hard.
I can only assume that, although the current AV product is free, there'll be a paid-for 'premium' version coming down the pike as soon as enough Apple owners are sufficiently scared. We've had a commercial version of our Mac anti-virus for many years which we sell to businesses.
If you don't want to use it that's fine, but we've explained numerous times why we've made it free — so it's not as though we're hiding anything. The author would have us believe that since anew piece of MAC malware is arriving almost every month, that we should all go and buy MAC antivirus from a certain antitrust company.
This is more reflective of the fact that certain antivirus companies have invested in the development in MAC antivirus, and they would like to selling their new products. By definition as in the literal definition of the English words , "conspiracy theory" includes all rumours of non-disclosure. So all rumours of "proprietary information" are literally conspiracy theories until they are proved, at which point they become fact of the conspiracy to withhold information.
In this, our Mis Information Age, any information which cannot be easily accessed by an experienced search engine user is — irrefutably — the direct result of two or more parties conspiring to withhold information, i.
I'm not convinced that withholding information of any kind from the human race could ever be in Humanity's best interests. Proprietary companies have historically disagreed; but then they were responsible for limited liability corporations which are inevitably going to kill us all if they are not eradicated from the face of the planet very shortly.
So my argument is clearly in favour of Sophos disclosing information Apple would prefer to be kept hidden for the benefit of…? The limited liability corporation that is nothing more than some sheets of paper which assert that Apple exists.
But imagining there is such a thing as a profit-driven company giving away "free lunches" is pretty much how Humanity got itself onto the gameplay guaranteed fast track for extinction.
I'm a fan of Sophos Antivirus. I need that in order to run some software that I cannot run on Mac that enables me to fill out the forms that the Army uses.
Now I have plugged in some USB drives into my computer that have Windows stuff on them, and yes, not everything on those drives was purchased. Sophos found and got rid of the potential threats that were in that mess on my drives. So it has kept crap off of my system and even prevented it from getting on other PCs that I have.
Look, the anti-virus is free, it does the job, and it's better than going completely unprotected into the world. I like to surf some porn now and then so why not have a virtual "jimmy" in place just in case? For those that think that malware will never happen to them I kind of giggle. That's exactly what pretty much anyone else has said about things before they happened to them. What's it hurt to use a prophylactic?
Amazes me though that it's free. How come you guys aren't charging for it? Not that I'm grumbling though, LOL. Ok interesting facts, but really a disgusting article posing as news to try to scare you into buying security software!
I for one will not be retarding the performance of my computer by buying a security product after reading this article.
Yes it is possible to write viruses and malware for apple systems, no one who knows about computers has ever seriously thought otherwise despite the claims of salespeople. That's the only product we mention isn't it? And, by the way, our free home user Mac anti-virus product is fully-featured — there's no "premium" edition we try to upsell people to. Hackers hack. If a strong hacker really wants to get you, trust me, he will. Nevermind what system or security you are using.
And if a friend sends me shit, not knowing it is malware? Or what if some commercial pops up and gives me some crap? This stuff happens often and most ppl don't even notice it.
There was a time, when I cleaned inftected PCs for a living. You wouldn't believe how much crap ppl download — thinking it's safe. You can't expect the mainstream user to understand what todownload and what not. If you were on board in the early 90's, when all this stuff started hitting very hard on the mainstream Windows , you would have learned a lesson or two about how to deal with this stuff and what to make of it.
Windows systems? Ah, yes. Think again. Ehm, most Antiviruses nowadays are extremly fast and ressource-friendly. We're not in the 90's anymore.
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