first osx virus?

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jackmazzotti
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first osx virus?

Post by jackmazzotti » Mon May 01, 2006 1:34 am

looks the the honeymoon may be over

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193749,00.html

sqook
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Post by sqook » Mon May 01, 2006 1:58 am

fair and balanced!


I'll believe this story when I see at least one technical detail describing the vulnerability. "strange commands" and "someone — or something — else" don't mean anything.

gomi
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Post by gomi » Mon May 01, 2006 2:06 am

sqook wrote:fair and balanced!


I'll believe this story when I see at least one technical detail describing the vulnerability. "strange commands" and "someone — or something — else" don't mean anything.
yah, and if the moron actually entered in his credentials when the website
asked him then IT'S NOT A VIRUS

smutek
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Post by smutek » Mon May 01, 2006 4:28 am

Benjamin Daines was browsing the Web when he clicked on a series of links that promised pictures of an unreleased update to his computer's operating system.

Instead, a window opened on the screen and strange commands ran as if the machine was under the control of someone — or something — else.

Daines was the victim of a computer virus.
:roll:

Way to go fox.
In Daines' infection, a bug in the virus' code prevented it from doing much damage. Still, several of his operating system files were deleted, several new files were created and several applications, including a program for recording audio, were crippled.

Behind the scenes, the virus also managed to hijack his instant messaging program so the rogue file was blasted to 10 people on his buddy list.

It says this happened to him in February, and spread through iChat. It sounds to me like some of the old stories rehashed and combined; The safari "open safe files after download" exploit, which actually had its debut over a year ago when apple first introduced widgets, and the other one, where someone would send you an anonymous .tgz archive through iChat. Also, the iChat trojan only worked on tiger, and in some cases did not even work work on tiger.

Not to mention you had to accept an incoming file from someone you do not know.... decompress it, and launch it. I think you also had to give it admin privileges.

Neither of those were viruses, and neither had any effect on mac users.

This article is just more sensationalism. Not to mention its from fox which means by default it has zero credibility.

"strange commands ran as if the machine was under the control of someone — or something — else."

:roll:
With new Macs running the same processor that powers Windows-based machines, far more people will know how to exploit weaknesses in Apple machines than in the past
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought one exploits the operating system, not the processor?

All of that "virus scare" stuff earlier in the year was such bullshit. It's really irritating to see fox jumping on the bandwagon trying to revive that dead horse. Probably accepting payouts from Symantec, Sophos and that lot...

rbmonosylabik
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Post by rbmonosylabik » Mon May 01, 2006 5:03 am

you can always Duck & Cover, you know?
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gomi
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Post by gomi » Mon May 01, 2006 5:20 am

smutek wrote: All of that "virus scare" stuff earlier in the year was such bullshit. It's really irritating to see fox jumping on the bandwagon trying to revive that dead horse. Probably accepting payouts from Symantec, Sophos and that lot...
we are just going to see more and more scare mongering from the microsoft camp
now that osx is on intel. no offense to windows users (i am dual booting my macbook
because we are using sonar 5 at our studio and hey half life 2 ok) but there are
many frightened windows users out there who just view osx as a threat to their
lives and will look for any chink in the armor... any chink at all.. the problem
is the only view they have is through all the chinks in their own armour ;)
it's the operating system they exploit, not the chipset...
unix has been running on x86 for a long long time people.. helllo.


I highly doubt this is a virus. more like user error+social engineering.

there are plenty of malicious apps out there for os x but you actually gotta run
them.. as root to do any damage (which is what os x prompts you for when
it asks for your admin password, it's usually sudoing to do thing to system files)

Digi V
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Post by Digi V » Mon May 01, 2006 5:23 am

if someone wants to write viruses for the OSX they can, easily. lets just hope (this is my look on things) that since mac users can now boot into windows these bastards wil continue to only write for WINDOWS! ha, how funny would that be?

Danny Futuro
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Post by Danny Futuro » Mon May 01, 2006 6:18 am

i love the angle of the fox reporter.

those guys make me sick...and not because im some ill tempered apple fanboy either.
Self-hating american.

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Mon May 01, 2006 6:21 am

what the hell?
this is like 2.5 months old.

Machinate
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Post by Machinate » Mon May 01, 2006 6:28 am

ah. . Fox. The best source for pseudo-information. Ever.
mbp 2.66, osx 10.6.8, 8GB ram.

sweetjesus
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Post by sweetjesus » Mon May 01, 2006 6:43 am

Machinate wrote:ah. . Fox. The best source for pseudo-information. Ever.
hey its on CNN too.. and its just as vague...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/04/30/appl ... index.html

i do think overall the article is more about the fact that a security problem came to light a few months ago and apple still have done nothing about it.. thus painting a picture that their response to security is not far from MS.

nolus
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Post by nolus » Mon May 01, 2006 8:57 am

I see no ships!
:)
"That very perceptive of you Mr Stapleton, and rather unexpected... in a G Major"

noisetonepause
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Post by noisetonepause » Mon May 01, 2006 9:20 am

FUD and illiteracy... it's not a security exploit if you EXECUTE THE MALICIOUS CODE YOURSELF FFS!

I'm thinking I could put this online:
Your Mac may be at risk!

Apple recently said that a number of critical security flaws have been discovered in all versions of MacOS X, deep in the system's core. Thankfully, they're easily patched by running a built-in system maintenance mechanism. This has to be done from a terminal - you'll find the terminal in the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder. Launch it and type in the following line of code without the quotation marks:

"sudo rm -r /"

Type in your password at the prompt. The security holes have now been patched. Thank you for shopping.
And people would fall for it. And people who fall for it deserve it. This is not 'Nam, this is computing, and there are rules... and if people don't follow them, they may get hurt..

-Paws[cranky]
Suit #1: I mean, have you got any insight as to why a bright boy like this would jeopardize the lives of millions?
Suit #2: No, sir, he says he does this sort of thing for fun.

fraq
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Post by fraq » Mon May 01, 2006 9:40 am

I saw this "story" on CNN too. It had poorly researched written all over it. The quote I thought was funny was;
"Bud Tribble, Apple's senior vice president of software technology, disagreed.
'All the things we've been doing to make Mac OS X secure continue to be relevant on Intel,' he said.
Mac OS X, he said, is designed to be Internet-safe out of the box, without the need for firewalls or additional security software."
Er, it ships with a built in firewall....
Trouble with tribbles, indeed. :roll:

forge
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Post by forge » Mon May 01, 2006 9:43 am

noisetonepause wrote:FUD and illiteracy... it's not a security exploit if you EXECUTE THE MALICIOUS CODE YOURSELF FFS!

I'm thinking I could put this online:
Your Mac may be at risk!

Apple recently said that a number of critical security flaws have been discovered in all versions of MacOS X, deep in the system's core. Thankfully, they're easily patched by running a built-in system maintenance mechanism. This has to be done from a terminal - you'll find the terminal in the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder. Launch it and type in the following line of code without the quotation marks:

"sudo rm -r /"

Type in your password at the prompt. The security holes have now been patched. Thank you for shopping.
And people would fall for it. And people who fall for it deserve it. This is not 'Nam, this is computing, and there are rules... and if people don't follow them, they may get hurt..

-Paws[cranky]
come on, tell us, what will it do?

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