You'll never work in this industry again - AST 1997
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Apple is still cavalier about security
FRUITY TOYMAKER Apple has an appalling track record when it comes to security and is finding that things are getting worse for it as its Iphone becomes more popular.
According to a report from insecurity experts Intego, 2009 was a busy year for Mac insecurity professionals who saw Trojan horse threats to OS X increase during the year, with a number of new variants, and new websites serving Mac malware.
Of course none of this was reported because Apple keeps problems with its OS close to its vest and the American press only publishes good stuff about Jobs' Mob.
However holes in the OS X code and third party software running on it were found that compromised the security of Macs, which paved the way for undetected malware attacks.
The report also said that last year saw a rise in attacks on the Iphone. This is not surprising, given the success of the device, but it is important to note that these attacks have so far affected only jailbroken Iphones.
Intego highlighted Apple's inability to stay on its toes with security updates despite the fact that it headed the league tables for security vulnerabilities.
Apple did issue security updates in 2009 for Mac OS X, Apple software and Apple hardware, but these were often a long time coming. In May 2009, Apple released its largest security update yet for Mac OS X, with 47 security fixes in an update that was larger than 400MB.
The cappuccino company had a philosophical breakthrough last year when it finally released a virus checker for OS X. The outfit had always suggested, especially in its TV commercials, that malware targeting the Mac did not exist.
This change in the company's position shows that Apple has realized that the threat is real, Intego reported. "Beyond recognizing the malware threat to Macs, Apple finally admitted that the techniques it includes in Mac OS X aren't enough to fully protect Macs from viruses and malware", the report said.
However Apple's first attempt at anti-virus software was a joke. Intego was surprised at the "limited scope and effectiveness" of the software. "In fact, as of January 2010, this anti-malware feature has not been updated, and still scans for the two Trojan horses and nothing else," the report said.
Apple's cavalier attitude toward security continued after Snow Leopard was released, when it was found that it shipped with an insecure version of Flash Player, which wasn't updated until the first general update for Mac OS X 10.6.
The Iphone was also a target for hackers whose first task was to successfully jailbreak the toy so it could be used on any network. These jailbroken gizmos had default settings which, if you did not know about them, left the phone wide open.
The report did note that malware was not found for Iphones that were left exactly as Steve Jobs intended them. µ
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The best comment was the "Apple users are mostly gay". Made me laugh.
Fanbois, please write interesting replies, otherwise you are giving the impression that you're all dumb sheep.
And where does Nick F say that Windows doesn't have viruses? Apples can get viruses too, just at the moment it's very 1 sided. ;-)
Apples, have you had your sense of humour removed when you bought some official memory from Apple for 3x the normal price?
I run 3 companies that draw well over 12 million in revenue a year. 3 Years ago one of my companies suffered a catastrophic loss of data from a virus, the next day we called Apple and switched over.
Not one virus since.
Not to mention a reduction in IT spending close to 20%. And a noticeable increase in productivity as well. We will not be going back to Windows needless to say.
I'm afraid I don't understand Nick's negative bias towards Apple. I suspect it stems from jealousy over their success.
...between Scientologists or the "Reverend" Jim Jones followers or Apple Macolytes? The answer is...none whatsoever. They've all been brainwashed by extremely gifted mind control fanatics. I'm just waiting for Steve "the anti-Christ" Jobs to order up the Kool-Aid. I recently heard a rumour that Jobs is negotiating a land deal in Jonestown, Guyanna for the new Apple headquarters.
Do you think I'm being a bit hard on the fruit-themed followers? The pattern is very scary. I invite you to Google and compare the steadfast and undying rhetoric from Scientologists with Jim Jones former, but unfortunately, deceased flock with Steve Jobs's lemmings. You'll find there is no difference whatsoever. It really is very scary that Jobs has skillfully won over poor hapless retards by applying mind control to remove all reasoning and objectivity, hence their undying love and support for overpriced, limited functionality, uber-controlled, pretty toys.
What's more amazing is the new Jobsian Kool-aid crowd has migrated over to The Inquirer to inflict damage control. Nick, pay no attention to the lemmings as it's actually Steve "Son of Satan" Jobs behind the curtain.
As Jim Jones famously said and sooner or later Steve "the Demon from Hell" Jobs will utter: "Enjoy the Kool-Aid kids!
Are mostly gay and pick a computer because it looks pretty. This position also gives them more expendable cash per household as there is usually 2 full-time working men in the house instead of 1 proper earning male and lower paid female.
It cannot be ignored that Apples profits increase perfectly in line with homosexuality.
poor you, again you haven't done your homework, isn't it Nick?
The title of the article should read: Nick Farrell & the Inquirer still cavalier with facts & honest tech journalism. OSX isn't perfect but it's a far cry from Windows (what ever version). Take away all the malware, trojan horses, viruses, etc. on the net that effect Windows & what's left? Still all we hear about is this nonsense...you think that users of Windows would be up in arms about the state of security on their psuedo multi-user OS (which is a huge part of the problem. Instead we get smoke & mirrors & some sort of twisted rationalization about why Windows is more secure. Flat out lies.
*but it is important to note that these attacks have so far affected only jailbroken Iphones.*
should read:
*but it is important to note that these attacks have so far affected only Iphones running an SHH server with the default password*
Typical case of blaming a company for stupidity of their customers
I'd like to see the "friction" in "news, reviews, facts and friction" be created by astute observation and penetrating insight backed by an unusual breadth of knowledge. Such whining, vacuous drivel does not make any "friction" worth making.
To Nick's bosses ---- you PAY this guy?
My mistake, I thought I was going to read an article written by a journalist. But I forgot which website this is...as well as the author of the article.
Oh well, I will post this and go on to real news on real websites.
Nick, come on, man. Give it up. You're a laughingstock and are NOT doing the Inq any good.
And the c**p just keep son commin'!
Who'd you rather be....Nikkie, full of hate and pounding a sweat-drenched keyboard or Steve J.?
I thought so.
Do you know that when he goes to bed at night, Nikkie dreams of Stevie? He's his hero!
Nikkie's a funny, funny, man!
OSX inherently have less security threats, that's a fact, and Apple genuinely uses this to boost its sales. Nothing wrong here.
Seriously, why would a hacker direct his attacks to OSX?
1) He would be missing about 95% of personal computers.
2) He would not pose a threat to critical systems like banks, governments, life support, military or any other serious application, since Macs are mostly used only for amusement and office procedures.
3) He would not buy a strictly proprietary computer as a Mac. It's easier to pirate Windows and run it where and how he please.
4) Hackers usually hate the Macs themselves, not its users.
5) Even though hackers are well aware that Macs are vulnerable, it's just funnier to find yet another hole in Windows.
It is as though the author doesn't understand the difference between a virus and a Trojan Horse. Or he expects his readers will be ignorant enough so that he can fool them.
Mac OSX has no virus's because of its BSD Open Source Unix foundations. It has never had malware "in the wild." That is, unlike Microsoft Windows, the Mac has no malware propagating itself through the internet.
Any computer user can get a Trojan Horse which tries to fool the user into giving away his security. It is only the foolish who fall for trojan horses. Apple has had only two such examples in the last few years. Until someone tries another variation there is no need to update its trojan examples in its Anti-trojan system. Apple is not in the business of fooling people into believing that they need anti-virus protection, unlike Intego.
It is true that, because Mac OSX is built on open source, that vulnerabilities will be found by the FOSS community in Apple's FreeBSD foundations. Apple is sometimes slow to patch an upgrade. But, Apple has a different time table than FOSS. It has different responsibilities. People rely on Apple to get their work done, so Apple can't rush to judgement. It often does not upgrade its underpinnings unless they improve its GUI.
A recent case was a FOSS member who raised a hue and cry about Apple being very slow to patch a vulnerability in FreeBDS 7.0 and 8.0. It turned out that Apple was still using FreeBSD 6.2 which did not have that vulnerability, so there was no need to patch anything. The FOSS member made an ass of himself by jumping to conclusions and not checking his facts.
Apple could be lackadaisical, because it is on the verge of greatly improving its security by moving to the 64 bit kernel. ASLR, DEP and increased sand boxing kicks in as soon as Apple has converted to 64 bit. What is the hold up? It has been almost 6 months since Snow Leopard was released.
The problem is the developers; they have to upgrade their programs to 64 bit code. There is little point in using the 64 bit kernel by default until over 80% of the developers have recompiled their programs. I'm expecting the change to the 64 bit Kernel in June or July.
Until then, we will have to bear asinine articles like the author's decrying about how bad Apple's security is.
Those of us who ARE concerned about security on our Mac devices get exactly zero useful information from this eyeball-whoring silliness.
Come on, Nick! Beyond than citing fewer than half a dozen anecdots, *DO* Mac/iPhone/iPod users suffer serious loss or compromise of data or access to their machines? My experience, as well as that of the other Mac users I talk to, is "NEVER!"
I keep watching. But sooner or later, spending any effort against a threat that never materializes, is neurotic. I bought a Mac because I have better things to do with my time than replay irrelevant fears.
what nick said about the iphone: The sky is falling
The truth: If you have intentionally opened a security hole in your phone and left your root password at it's default you might get hacked.
What nick said about the Mac. Multiple trojans running rampant your data is not safe
The truth: There are two trojans in the wild and the current OS will not allow you to download them.
The truth is that if your grandma had an iMac and clicked on every popup she could find she would still have nothing to fear on a mac.
This may change some day but I've had 10 years where I have not had to waste any of my time securing my system for viruses and malware. So the attacks would have to get really bad to level the playing field between me and most windows users.
OMG! What is this junk! Nick did you read the report?
Let's take a look shall we?
Nick says "According to a report from insecurity experts Intego, 2009 was a busy year for Mac insecurity professionals who saw Trojan horse threats to OS X increase during the year, with a number of new variants, and new websites serving Mac malware."
What does the report say? "When it comes to Mac malware, there are only known two Trojan horses in the wild, which were respectively found via pornographic video websites and pirated software shared on Bit Torrent. There was also one non-functional proof-of-concept malware that only targeted the RealBasic runtime and a game that deletes files randomly, completely with the user's consent."
OMG! There are still NO viruses, and TWO trojans and ONE, ONE proof-of-concept malware!!!
Can you imagine if there was some software on Windows that protected it from all but two trojans and one proof-of-concept malware!!! It would be said to be GREAT protection! But to NIck, well, it's "appalling"
The report went on to compliment Apple on its responding within a month to most security holes while it rightly pointed out times when Apple has been slow to respond but for crying out loud we have been reading these types of trash articles for how many years?
This is more junk news meant to generate clicks and I fell for it! Ugh! The fact is I have really NOTHING to worry about today and the last 8 years of people like Nick telling me I do is getting old. You really need to find a new cause Nick.
One day there will be some virus or something and it's then I will deal with it such a strategy is no worse or better than the PC user with Norton or McAfee that gambles on not being the first to get some new virus before the respective definitions are updated.
The only difference is I haven't spent the last eight years paying for anti-virus software that sucks the CPU all day long.
In short...nothing to see here, move along!
Well, maybe 2010 will be a better year than the the virus-ridden one we all suffered through with our Macs ;-)
What an idiot!
Mac OS X has not had a single virus in its 10 years of existence, and Nick Farrell considers this OS to be "insecure"?
Windows, on the other hand, is the Swiss Cheese of operating systems... has hundreds of thousands of malware and virus attacks... and yet Nick Farrell thinks this is Bill Gates' (oh holy one) gift of everlasting "security" to humanity?
Welcome to Bizarro World ;-)
Any article that begins with "Fruity toymaker" has all the earmarks of truly objective reporting.
Who is this guy and how does he manage to actually hold a job as a reporter?
Oh, I forgot - he contributes to "The Register". 'Nuff said...
@kthxbye:
"perhaps you can't handle the truth yourself. Read about how apple have essentially wangled the quarterly earnings report by changing the way it reports them."
ROTFLMAO. Maybe you should read the reports.
EVEN AFTER ALLOWING FOR THE ACCOUNTING CHANGE, Apple beat the prior year's sales and profits by double digit percentages.
While they didn't have to, Apple revised previous years' results to reflect the accounting change so that a year over year comparison is possible. From Apple's report "Because Apple began selling both iPhone and Apple TV in fiscal 2007, the Company retrospectively adopted the new accounting principles as if the new accounting principles had been applied in all prior periods. "
Specfically:
Another example: The year-ago quarter, when Apple reported $10.17 billion revenue and net profits of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 earnings per share. Apple shipped 4.36 million iPhones, with reported revenue of $1.25 billion. Under the revised results, Apple revenue was $11.88 billion and net profits were $2.26 billion, or $2.50 earnings per share. Apple's revenue increases by $1.71 billion, net profits by $1.03 billion and earnings per share by $1.15.
Apple did extremely well last quarter in spite of difficult financial times. So why is it that you get such an emotional kick out of telling lies to try to make Apple look bad?
@you can't handle the truth
perhaps you can't handle the truth yourself. Read about how apple have essentially wangled the quarterly earnings report by changing the way it reports them.
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Once-you-dig-deeper-Apples-record-quarter-is-not-so-impressive/1264484059
kthxbye
The vast majority of Mac users have never had a single virus or trojan horse. None. Zero. Perhaps that will change someday, but for now this is simply not a problem for Macs.
move along now. Nothing to see here. Nick's just being his usual self.
Personally I'm glad he hasn't mentioned the earnings, I've got a busy afternoon and havn't got time to despair over the stupidity of the human race.
Hmmmm... Nick throws up a story that could have been posted anytime, and no mention of earnings from Apple.
Do you know what that means...
....yup Apple BLEW AWAY expectations and iPhones sales were double and those really expensive computers that noone wants were up big too (from a year ago) iPods were down 8% which was the only thing that could be nitpicked.
Funny when nothing negative can be found or spun by Nick - there is no mention... but I guarantee the first semi-negative data point and that earnings article will be written up instantly.
I know this is the INQ, but how about some integrity Nick? If you are going to cover Apple, quarterly results would seem to be worth covering...