Apple’s security reality is changing right before our eyes and the company’s response will be telling. The toughest challenge will be shutting down hackers while keeping its trademark usability in tact.
Steve Jobs & Co. is known for creating devices that can spur gadget lust with just a mere rumor. Apple customers for years have taken the view—inspired by the company’s commercials—that its software is safer. If you have a Mac there’s no need for anti-virus software. You’re secure. The reality is Apple enjoyed security by obscurity. Its market share wasn’t worth the attention from hackers. Now Apple is worth the attention. Where’s the glory in taking out a smaller computing player when you can take out the big dog—Microsoft?
Here’s Apple’s chain of events over the last month:
* Mac Defender malware attacks Apple users.
* Apple remains mostly silent and tries to thread the customer service needle.
* Apple then announces a fix and that a future update will put Mac Defender to bed with an update.
* Evil doers launch a new renamed version just a few hours later. The new malware is renamed (predictable) and split into two parts, a downloader that delivers a payload similar to Mac Defender (not so predictable).Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Microsoft went through this same learning process with its security procedures. Microsoft had to button down its security operations and today is able to fend off a lot of attacks.
Most of us in the PC Support biz are all too familiar with this particular type of Malware. I wouldn’t care to guess how many clients I have lost to Apple due to end users disgust with having to deal with this ongoing threat. In some cases I have even suggested to some of my more troublesome clients to switch to Mac. Maybe now this problem will get the attention it deserves, and the “evil doers” can be identified and prosecuted? No?….Are we now going to see MalwareBytes for the Mac?
There still is no patch for stupidity.
Ya, a friend (non-adv PC user) swears she never clicked on anything – but always used IE.
The anti-virus malware on the PC & Win XP is hellish.
The only workaround I’ve found is a new hard disk (which is often a good thing) and using the old hd (with \windows dir deleted).
The latest XP version of this malware is sneaky and perfected to a Tee. No wonder they are going after Mac, they’ve perfected the tech. It’s a simple recompile on another platform, ever since MacOS is so closely related to Unix.
Cloud-based desktop & networked applicances will be the future.
I heard rumors that the Russian mafia was behind this, paying top developers over there to work for them designing these evil programs.
To then create botnets and/or get bank info when you pay your bills.
#1. A wise man once said, Stupidity can’t be fixed…or something like that.
Mac’s are mostly fairly high end machines sold to people with significant amounts of money/credit.
In absolute terms there are a lot of them.
Cracking Windows and its oft hunted users is taking more work than it once did.(Okay maybe not as long as people are downloading anything and everything from the torrents but you do get the idea.)
There just isn’t any real reason not to hit Apple products. And this phishing scam was a really low level but often effective attack.
In my view once a machine is compromised you need to do a total reformat of the hard drive. The thought that anything less will work is just a fragment of thinking left over from previous generations when it did actually work.
“Cracking Windows and its oft hunted users is taking more work than it once did.”
I don’t know, I have seen much more of this activity in the last 6 months. I do at least 3-4 of these a week…and it’s become a significant part of my income..sorry to say.
I can remove this in under an hour now, no need to backup, reformat and reinstall everything. That is way too time-consuming. Changing someones behavior takes a bit longer
The structure of the Mac OS makes it as invulnerable as a usable computer can be.
This story is being blown out of proportion and spun to make Mac look bad.
And who I wonder would benefit from such spinning?
Welcome to the real world Apple Fanboys…
Any malware that requires you to manually enter your username and password is only a threat to stupid people and is not preventable by Apple unless they lock down the OS development like they do for iOS.
As poster number one stated “There still is no patch for stupidity”
#9. Yeah, Read the article, it morphed and now requires no password.
Linux virus source code found:
echo “This virus operates on the honor system, please login in as root and delete all your files\n “
#9 What if something that looks like a OSX dialog box pops up an OSX warning and prompts for your password? Do you run a CPU level black-ICE debugger to check if the executable is running in a trusted processor ring?
That’s the problem with Windows now – they locked down so much that every little task now prompts you to agree that you just agree to everything.
If the user is running in user mode as every person should…it will still require an admin password. If the an inexperienced user is running the system on an admin account…which noone should ever do, Windows, Mac, Linux or whatever.
#10 – I also do not see anything in the article about it not requiring a password. I did RTFA. The only thing mentioned about passwords is by people in the comments section. We all know how reliably accurate those are.
#12 – Unless I am specifically trying to install a new piece of software, or an Apple update, I have never been prompted for a login and password. If something randomly asked me for my accreditation, I would not give it…period. Social Engineering cannot be blamed on an OS maker. Show me a real virus/trojan that can install itself without warning on OSX then we may have something.
But for all the anti-apple trolls out there, please continue to lambbaste my statement. I’m done responding for today 🙂
#14. Don’t go away madd.
“But like the most dominant form of malware now bedeviling Windows users, Mac Defender presented itself as an anti-spyware title, when it actually is just the opposite. Many users were tricked into installing it and entering that password.
No longer. A new variant of Mac Defender – this one known as MacGuard – doesn’t require an administrative password to install. It is placed in the user’s Applications folder, rather than the systems-level Applications folder, which does not require administrative permissions.”
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2011/05/more-mac-malware-madness-no-password-required/
The new version of the software doesn’t require a password but is still going to bring up an installer similar to firefox asking to you drag the program to applications folder. Which is one of the 2 install methods. It still requires the user to install it, at least from what I’ve read. It isn’t like the windows version where just clicking on a pop up installs it without an actual installer popping up. I am not sure if this malware will bypass the mac’s warning that you are about to run a program downloaded from the internet the first time or not.
Also the uninstall for this one is pretty easy, force quit it, delete it from applications and remove it from the login list.
They may get there but this malware is still primitive. The only thing newsworthy about it is that they are starting to target the platform.
#11, so you think Linux is not vulnerable to viruses? It is safe for the same reason the Mac is, hackers don’t target it, yet.
Mac users brought this on themselves by always promoting the system to others, making it so large a user base that they got targeted. They already had the deal for Microsoft apps and good graphing apps. You should have just shut up.
#7 I entirely agree.
#20. Yeah it’s a conspiracy I tell ya!!!!
Even leaving aside true vulnerabilities where an app can bypass the security because of a bug. Any OS where the user is the admin is vunerable to these social engineering attacks.
Windows is particularly bad because since vista it prompts you for permission for updates, restarts, drivers etc that you just keep clicking yes. In spite of actually having a more capable security model than Unix. Macs are really vunerable because Mac users haven’t developed the Windows world paranoia about clicking on links.
Linux (and OSX) are pretty good at separating the underlying OS from the user – BUT that doesn’t matter anymore on single user machines. A virus destroying the operating system doesn’t cost me anything – it’s an install disc away. But all the access control lists and suid bits don’t protect me from doing something that gives a virus permission to delete the files that I own.
I’ve been using Macs for 25 years and have never, that’s right… never… had a virus or any such malware. I use them for business and they are on 16 hrs a day. I’ve never had any virus protection software installed either. I made a lot of money with them in the graphics field, where a Microsoft OS was unreliable until just a few years ago. So I don’t know why some of you are so giddy (Pedro) that someone has attempted to play on someone else’s stupidity. Phishing like the “Defender” does not need any specific OS to take advantage of the gullible. At least I’ve had 25 years of worry free computing and the best graphics computing available.
I agree that Macs have been overpriced (but worth it), but I plan to build my next Mac with off the shelf parts since they are using the Intel chips now. It should cost me about half. Since anyone can do this, I expect that Mac computers will have to come down in price. It was a nice profitable run for them, but times are a changin.
What I thought was very telling was what Ed Bott wrote about how Apple support staff were to avoid confirming the problem
http://zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-to-support-reps-do-not-attempt-to-remove-malware/3362
read how Apple (as of 5/16/11) instructs the phone support to deal with this problem.
Skeptic said “I expect that Mac computers will have to come down in price.”
Why?
“The reality is Apple enjoyed security by obscurity. Its market share wasn’t worth the attention from hackers.” Hell I said that years and years ago, thanks captain obvious.
Foobar, the net (YouTube etc) has 100’s of sites on how to build your own Mac.. what motherboards to use, CPU’s etc, and they provide the necessary software that allows you to boot Mac OS flawlessly. As long as you pay for a legitimate copy of Mac OS, it’s legal to build one for yourself. With a second hard drive you can also boot Windows, if you like both. Either way you end up with a decent computer. The reason PC’s are so cheap is because you can do it yourself. Mac will eventually have to follow suit. it will take several years but it’s inevitable IMO.
Pedro, good for you, but you know that you are an exception to the rule if you’ve never had a virus on a PC… unless you’ve just started using them in the last 5 years. them.
Pedro, like I said, you can legally build a Mac for yourself. That’s all that matters. Apple can’t do anything about it.
As a Mac user and a PC users. I have always understood that Mac’s were not immune. They were just a minority. Who really cares about a small percentile when you have a OS like Windows XP with holes galore. But now that has changed. I believe the thought is that Mac users are now the ones to pick on.
This is a wake-up call to Mac users. Those who are too arrogant to accept it and continue to down play or ignore this issue, will rue the day. Better safe than sorry. Time to wake-up and start dealing with it because it’s only going to get worse if you don’t.
#32 Will rue the day? It’s crapware, not a bloody Dickens novel.
@ #13 #22
Well sure you are right in saying that no one should run their machine as admin for no reason.
This is true if you are running nothing else than wordprocessing/webbrowsing/eMail. But ANYTHING else is a royal pain in the ass if not logged in permanent as admin. This is true for Windows, Linux and OSX. The problem here is that tons of (mostly 3rd party) software needs Admin privileges- not only to install but to RUN AT ALL. When I’m in a workflow I don’t want to interrupt it by having to change users every effin 5 clicks. I also do not want to type in my admin password evereytime I start an app or put in a new usb drive.
And the not running as admin WILL NOT protect you from getting malicious code on your box. It maybe will prohibit its execution, but the code will be on your machine anyway –
executing or not. And as some poster mentioned before: If your Machine is compromised by whatever a FULL FORMAT is mandatory. Period. Don’t trust snakeoil Virus-/Malware Removal Tools.