Apr

13

Security By Obsurity

Filed Under Malware, Rants, Security, Spyware, Views, Virus | 1 Comment

Security
I’m asked all the time: “Should I install anti-virus or anti-spyware software on my Mac?”. I’ve also noticed that when anything out of the ordinary goes wrong I’m told, not asked – “I must have a virus” to wit I smugly answer – ‘you don’t have a virus, Macs are more secure than Windows’ yadda yadda yadda. Well, I need to wipe that smirk off my face as an article in the NY Times on Mac Security has pointed out:

The security researcher Dino A. Dai Zovi knows this better than most. The attack that won him the Pwn2Own hacking contest in 2007 required that his victims do nothing more than visit a malicious Web site. “All they saw was their Web browser crash,” he says.

“I have found that Macs are less secure than their current Windows and Linux counterparts,” says Mr. Dai Zovi, who is co-author of The Mac Hacker’s Handbook. “At least for the last several years, Apple has lagged behind in security, largely because the threat hasn’t been there.”

Basically, the Mac is safe because it’s market share (10%) is still too small to attract hackers to migrate their tools over to a new platform. The article asks what level of market share warrants attacks. It seems to be from 17% on. We’ll see. In the meantime, Apple releases security updates (what are they doing?) to plug holes as they arise and Snow Leopard should hopefully be more secure than Leopard. In the meantime, read this article and like me, wipe that smug off your face : )

Mac Security Part II – NY Times – Riva Richmond

Aug

20

Macs and the Mafia

Filed Under Advice, Malware, Recommendations, Security | 3 Comments

lockIt seems the Russian Mafia is targeting the Mac with a piece of Malware. See this post from Macintouch.com and this one from Intego for details. If you’re concerned about this sort of thing the best piece of advice is to only download software from trusted sources. Also, the browser Firefox will not automatically mount these kind of Disk Images. Safari, by default, does. To protect yourself from this in Safari, turn off (uncheck) the “Open safe files after downloading” function within it’s General preferences. There are anti-virus and anti-spyware packages out there for the Mac. Intego has a couple of offerings as well as Norton Anti-Virus from Symantec.