Supposed Mac OS X Trojan Another Piece of Linkbait
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 1st Mar 2011 00:28 UTC
Mac OS X It's sad to see that even after all these years, we still have to write articles like this one. It's all over the web right now: a new backdoor Mac OS X trojan discovered! Code execution! Indicative of rise in Mac malware! Until, of course, you actually take a look at what's going on, and see that not only is it not in the wild, it can't really do anything because it's a beta.
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RE: Maybe I'm crazy...
by WereCatf on Tue 1st Mar 2011 05:26 UTC in reply to "Maybe I'm crazy..."
WereCatf
Member since:
2006-02-15

This old mentality of "oh, well, it can't gain root so it's no big deal" needs to stop dead.

But I don't give a damn if a piece of malware can gain root privileges on my desktop

While I agree with the first quote, I disagree with the second: if malware gains root privileges then that malware does indeed have access to all of your personal information AND it has much better chances of being able to hide its existence from you and your antivirus applications.

Malware with root access == malware with access to absolutely anything you do on your machine, including anything personal.

Basically I'm saying malware is bad, with OR without root access.

Reply Parent Score: 4

RE[2]: Maybe I'm crazy...
by Alfman on Tue 1st Mar 2011 15:30 in reply to "RE: Maybe I'm crazy..."
Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

"Malware with root access == malware with access to absolutely anything you do on your machine, including anything personal. "

I am not sure why this is even debated.
Root access is a superset of user level access.
User level access is sufficient to steal user files and to turn a machine into a zombie.

Reply Parent Score: 1