"At the recent ShmooCon hacking conference, an unknown hacker took control of [a] researcher's computer, disabling the firewall and starting up a file server. While such compromises have become common in the Windows world, this time the computer was an Apple PowerBook running the latest version of Mac OS X. The compromise underscores a number of trends that has already caused a shift in focus among flaw finders and could result in more attacks on Mac OS X. "This is almost certainly the year of the OS X exploit," said Jay Beale, an expert in hardening Linux and Mac OS X systems. "The OS X platform may be based on a Unix platform, but Apple seems to be making mistakes that Unix made, and corrected, long ago."
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Member since:2005-07-06
How will the user know when malware finally starts propagating for his/her OS? Will a nice little box show up that says "WARNING! THERE IS NOW MALWARE FOR OS X/LINUX! PLEASE SMARTEN UP FROM NOW ON!"?
No.
You should be consciously aware of malware for *all* platforms *all* the time. Complacency is not security.
Member since:2005-07-02
How will the user know when malware finally starts propagating for his/her OS? [Shouting deleted]
He'll know about it pretty quickly, because such big news (i.e. a Linux virus epidemic) will be all over the computer security/anti-virus sites, as well as here, on Slashdot, on Digg, etc.
But the fact is that, even if the user did want to prepare in advance, if the virus has yet to be identified then no anti-virus would help against it anyway.
You should be consciously aware of malware for *all* platforms *all* the time.
How can you be aware of something that doesn't exist yet?
Don't worry, when a Linux/OS X virus starts spreading, we'll hear about it. It's not clear yet how such a virus could successfully spread, though.
Complacency is not security.
Neither is focusing on threats that don't actually exist yet.
Edited 2006-02-09 01:44
Member since:
2005-07-02
Your argument makes sense, and sounds reasonable at first glance.
That's because it is.
But at second glance, what you're saying is akin to "I've never had a car accident, so in reality, I can drive a car and not worry about car accidents."
That's not akin to what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that, until there are sightings of Linux malware "in the wild" that are credible enough to cause concern, then in fact there's little reason to be concerned. As usual, it's good practice to follow security bulletins (because, even though malware isn't a problem for Linux, there are still software vulnerabilities to take care of).
Again, I'm not saying that running Linux/OS X prevents you from getting malware. What I'm saying is that there is no malware for Linux/OS X as of yet. Until there is, there's no reason to worry. When (and if) there is, then we'll take the appropriate steps to protect our boxen.
Note that I added "and if", because in fact the *nix security model is in fact better to prevent virus propagation, and thus will always make *nix viruses less "interesting" to write. To recap, the main elements of this model are:
1) no executable file simply by providing the appropriate extension
2) a more varied OS/App ecosystem (monoculture is BAD)
3) a strong normal user/root user separation
4) generally more computer-savvy users