O.T. Mac OS and viruses/worms

[Richard Rupert]

This is a question for you guys who know both the PC OS and Mac OS:
I was told recently that Macs cannot get viruses because the operating system is "closed". You would have to intentionally install a virus and run it to ever have a problem.

Anyone have insight as to the credibility of this statement?

TIA

[Mark Stebbeds]

I don't know about the "closed" part of your question, but the Mac OS does not get viruses from the internet because no one is writing viruses for the Mac. Most of the tools for writing viruses are created for Windows.

If you have a Windows OS installed on your Mac using Bootcamp, then you can get a Windows virus.

I have heard about Mac OS getting a virus from an infected disk, but never experienced one.

I have my Mac connected to the internet and usually go online only to download software updates for my Mac apps, and have never had a problem.

On the other hand, most of my Windows virus problems went away when I started using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer for browsing. At the risk of explaining this incorrectly, it's my understanding that every installation of IE has the same directory path and file names on the "back end" making it easy for hackers, whereas Firefox is different and random with each installation making it more difficult.

When I scan, I rarely find a virus or maleware on my Windows box either.

Mark

[905shmick]

Wow, quite a can of worms you're going to open up here.

OS X is based on unix which bruns the core services as the root user or super user. You then create a user level accounts for yourself and others and all your programs are run as that user and all your files are owned by that user. What this means is that you can only really harm your own data. You wont be able to harm the data owned by root or any other user without calling a program/utility to escalate your privileges to those of the root user.

Now, don't let your guard down and feel super safe about this because you can still fall victim to trojan software which looks like one thing but does another ie: download some neato app that asks you for your password during installation, only to find out that it's now doing something crazy to your system.

At the end of the day, most of the problems people experience with both windows and mac with regards to vruses, trojans, exploits and the rest of things comes down to people not paying attention to what they're doing, downloading anything they want, clicking away through all the prompts, saying yes to everything, putting their password in whenever prompted and such.

As much as I despise windows, if taken care of properly, you should be able to have virus free experience.

Also, the number of computers running windows vs those running OS X is insane, so the system of choice when creating malware is going to be windows as you're target audience is so large.

[Mark Stebbeds]

we've changed our policy to change any emailed client files, for example .doc files, etc. to .pdfs. or whatever to eliminate passing viruses.


Ditto. Not only that, the file .pdf cannot be inadvertently changed like a .doc.

Mark

[Richard Rupert]

Thanks guys... as a point of interest, I am a PC user and have been on-line since 1996 (for the past 5 years with DSL and on-line 24/7), and have gotten only one virus (about 8 years ago). It was a nasty trojan that AVG found but could not remove for some reason. I eventually succeeded in wiping it off the system by searching net forums for advice.

I agree that most virus recipients are unintentionally complicit due to careless surfing and downloading practices. Also, my system doesn't crash, and I'm sure it's not just because I'm lucky. :)

Thanks for the replies.

[DominicPerry]

I was installing anti virus/trojan software on Macs over 18 years ago. They existed then and they exist now, although catching them in the wild is relatively uncommon. I wouldn't rely on having no protection on an internet connected machine, personally.

I guess this is OT, which means that you are not thinking about using the Mac as a DAW.

Dominic

[DominicPerry]

Thanks guys... as a point of interest, I am a PC user and have been on-line since 1996 (for the past 5 years with DSL and on-line 24/7), and have gotten only one virus (about 8 years ago). It was a nasty trojan that AVG found but could not remove for some reason. I eventually succeeded in wiping it off the system by searching net forums for advice.

I agree that most virus recipients are unintentionally complicit due to careless surfing and downloading practices. Also, my system doesn't crash, and I'm sure it's not just because I'm lucky. :)

Thanks for the replies.

I disagree with the 'be careful and it will be ok' approach. You can get a virus on an unprotected machine without installing anything yourself. If you have the firewall on and keep windows updated, then you will probably be ok, but even then, it's possible to hack in and infect a machine. It's relatively easy and likely if you haven't kept Windows up to date. The people who write viruses are pretty clever at this stuff. And of course, silly little things like someone bringing you their audio files on a USB stick can ruin your machine. Do you have a virus and spyware protected machine which you can check the USB stick with first, before you put it into your unprotected DAW? Do you have USB covers so that no-one sticks their stick in your USB socket when you're not looking?

Dominic

[John Ludlow]

Mac viruses do exist - or, anyway - have existed. But there are thousands of new viruses, or new variations on old ones, discovered every week, and they're almost entirely written to infect PCs running Windows.
It is as Mark said it: if you go to all the trouble of writing a virus, why point it at the (as of 2007) 5 - 6 percent of (and I'm ceding Apple all of the MacIntel machines here...) personal computers that don't run Windows? It only makes sense to aim it at security weaknesses in the dominant operating system and, most especially these days, the dominant web browser on the net (Explorer 6 and 7 together owned 79***37; market share as of 2007). Of course, non-virus software manufacturers have noticed the same disparity in usage numbers - and they also write, overwhelmingly, for Windows as well - so Wintel users have that going for them, at least.

FireFox had a size-able portion of the browser market in 2007 as well - like, 14%. That's a large enough percentage to cause most web page designers to consider it when writing their pages, but usually not enough to entice virus writers to target it. So, you can avoid a lot of trouble simply by browsing the web with Firefox (which is free) instead of Explorer (so far).

I read an interesting article the other day that talked about a particular software product that was written to be of use to crackers. Unbeknownst to the users of the product, it was reporting usage statistics back to the author. One of the things that it reported was the brand of browser employed by the users of his program. As it turns out, most crackers use Opera (1.9% market share) to browse the net with. Smart crackers.

[John Ludlow]

Hmmm... on the other hand - look at this:

http://www.htlounge.net/art/9477/browsers-vulnerability-study-by-cenzic.html

[mr_es335]

Hello,

Interesting post...but up here in Canada, places like Future Shop and Best Buy have an equal amount of PC's and MAC's on the shelf - all with similar problems.

One comment made by one of the more "senior" staff at Best Buy was that he was seeing an increase in problems with MAC's (in the last 1-2 years or so) are the direct result of less experienced users buying MAC's.

As a computer consultant, I am seeing this more as well and I have a flash drive stored away where many a nasty virus is now doing time.

[Pedro Itriago]

(holding a pocket watch by the chain and swinging it side to side)

Macs don't get viri. Is the most secure system evah!

[Pedro Itriago]

As it turns out, most crackers use Opera (1.9% market share) to browse the net with. Smart crackers.

The bad thing is, Opera has begun sucking since version 10

[Richard Rupert]

I disagree with the 'be careful and it will be ok' approach. You can get a virus on an unprotected machine without installing anything yourself. If you have the firewall on and keep windows updated, then you will probably be ok, but even then, it's possible to hack in and infect a machine. It's relatively easy and likely if you haven't kept Windows up to date. The people who write viruses are pretty clever at this stuff. And of course, silly little things like someone bringing you their audio files on a USB stick can ruin your machine. Do you have a virus and spyware protected machine which you can check the USB stick with first, before you put it into your unprotected DAW? Do you have USB covers so that no-one sticks their stick in your USB socket when you're not looking?

Dominic
I didn't mean to imply that I didn't have "protection" in place (if that's even what you're suggesting). I have NOD 32, Spybot and Zonealarm on my internet machine. I also stay totally current with updates; with Windows and antivirus/spyware software.
You make a very good point about the potential to infect a non-internet connected studio machine with a USB stick however. That's something I'm not protecting. I do occasionally bring mp3 and wav files over from clients' thumb drives. I didn't realize those could contain a virus. More to worry about. :(

[Mark Stebbeds]

Hmmm... on the other hand - look at this:

http://www.htlounge.net/art/9477/browsers-vulnerability-study-by-cenzic.html

Interesting link. Thanks.

I have always been advised that FF was superior to IE for the "back door access reasons" I mentioned earlier.

Maybe the hackers have gotten better, and MS has closed some doors.

The gurus that advise me have all bailed to Linux, and suggest that I am insane for not doing the same. Maybe it's time to just switch my email and browsing tasks over to the Mac OS, even tho my main audio apps are on that box.

Mark

[Richard Rupert]

Whoa, hold on there cowpokes! (Pedro will LOVE this one). :)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/?p=293

[Pedro Itriago]

Whoa, hold on there cowpokes! (Pedro will LOVE this one). :)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/?p=293

Yeap, that's an oldie.

What I don't get is that one of the reasons people like firefox is because of the extension, yet nobody seems peeved everytime a new version of firefox comes out and those extensions stop working, some even forever because their development stopped. Might be the same reason why people love macs.

[Pedro Itriago]

I didn't mean to imply that I didn't have "protection" in place (if that's even what you're suggesting). I have NOD 32, Spybot and Zonealarm on my internet machine. I also stay totally current with updates; with Windows and antivirus/spyware software.
You make a very good point about the potential to infect a non-internet connected studio machine with a USB stick however. That's something I'm not protecting. I do occasionally bring mp3 and wav files over from clients' thumb drives. I didn't realize those could contain a virus. More to worry about. :(

I have no protection whatsoever. I did buy into this whole psychosis of virus protection until I saw that there was really anything that positive to it and the system was being bogged down by this "protections".

Yet, I have no viri. In my lifetime, I think I've had 3 virus. All of the infections were for being dumb (clicked on a suspicious file, etc/), all non-fatal and easily cleaned. The first one was real educational since I was toying around with asm and was able to deconstruct the virus (stoner on a 286 machine).

The only thing I do is to have an adware program and run it once in a while. Not even my wife nor kid get infected. If you properly configure IE with very simply settings changes or use a browser like opera or firefox, you're golden.

[Mark Stebbeds]

I have no protection whatsoever. I did buy into this whole psychosis of virus protection until I saw that there was really anything that positive to it and the system was being bogged down by this "protections".


I don't any virus protection on my audio machines for this reason also. I guess that's leftover from the days when CPU headroom was more precious than it is now, and I had a few problems with audio software. I go online with this machine, but usually only to download software updates. (it's a Mac)

I do have it on the computer I normally use for browsing, email, and logging onto bank, credit card and other financial institution sites. It doesn't happen very often, but every now and then I get a warning when downloading email or logging onto a website. Not long ago, eBay triggered a warning that turned out to be a false positive due to outdated virus database.

Mark