Apple Growth Will Draw Malware Attacks

[insanarchist]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758

Eh, maybe I'm wrong

 

[jmackay]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758

Eh, maybe I'm wrong

Oh please don't bring that retarded article back up... its soo completely biased and the data they used is very inaccurate and misleading.

As for what you were looking for, I'm pretty sure it ended with one person able to do it, but it required the user click a bunch of stuff and allow the attack to work... so it wasn't automated just by viewing bad content on a webpage (think it was an email that the hacker sent to the apple tech).

 

[tesfaye]

I've been playing games with a UAC prompt in the background before - it popped under the game when the game tried to automatic-update, and was waiting for me when I quit playing. If you can play a game with UAC going on, I could easily see exploits on the horizon.

It's called secure desktop, programs can't get to it. Tasks continue to run on the other desktop except for the process waiting for privilige elevation approval.

Wrong, it makes it horribly less secure.

Wrong, it's not horribly less secure. Horribly less secure would be not having any sort of prompt or security measure at all. I don't use a retail box copy of the OS so I don't know if there is included documentation on the matter but what should happen is you setup the OS and then create an account for normal day to day use. Those accounts work just fine and BY DEFAULT you are prompted for the password of the administrator (initial setup account as real administrator is disabled) for elevation. The UAC prompt without requiring a password is probably there just to ease the pain of running initial installations and whatnot during the setup of a pc.

It decreases security through decreasing the user's care-o-meter. The world already is tired of waiting for Windows to do something (most of us spend 8 hours a day on a crappy work computer dealing with Windows), UAC prompts popping up every time the user tries to do something is only going to make people take a UAC prompt lightly, as they should not.

Install the RC of service pack 1 and get back to me. I use Vista x64 in both modes and during normal use I don't see all of these prompts. Games load up and programs run just fine. I'll admit the prompts were a little out of control and they missed some annoying scenarios in the first revision but it's been improved greatly in the service pack. I think the users you describe that would care less because the OS is telling them they are about to do something dangerous wouldn't care anyway so they are dangerous regardless and it's a moot point. They'll continue to wreak havoc unimpeded in whatever OS they use if they have the keys to it.

The average organization isn't going to install Vista on those aging machines. Anyone considering such a move shouldn't be responsible for corporate desktops.

Like I said, UAC is a step in the right direction, but like all Microsoft products, their first attempt gets a grade of C- (that is, just barely acceptable, enough so they can shove it out the door and beat their competitors to the punch).

I somewhat agree here but a C-? Beating their competitors to the punch? What are you talking about? Vista was years late. They missed the boat long ago, or was there ever one to catch? All they had to do is improve on XP and they did just that. Yes they stumbled a bit but I guess that's what happens when you have to please investors who don't do a lick of coding. The OS is somewhat a new platform and will have it's growing pains just like 95, 98, 2000, and XP (Me doesn't even count WTF do you call that thing?). Again, the service pack fixes a lot of the REAL major issues with the OS. They are making some real progress here in the consumer desktop space and I think that only means that Windows 7 will be a much improved and more polished OS release as it's using improved upon technology from Vista/2008, along with a good dose of lessons learned from Vista.

Debating about UAC and it's merits vs a *nix based system is senseless for the most part. Microsoft isn't touting better security than *nix (which kinda throws Apple in there too), but as a step towards better security within the OS. UAC is a bolt on solution that works but to have it really deep and streamlined as some of you would prefer would require way more more development time. As another poster already mentioned it's not like *nix OS's are devoid of any security holes. This is a first attempt and damn good one and UAC should only continue to improve as evidenced by the performance seen in SP1. Run x64 and you close even more holes and make attacks on the kernel even more difficult.

Seriously install SP1, you will see quite a bit of improvement. It's been more stable than XP ever was (actually using the OS for more than browsing and P2P).

 

[bangmal]

Oh please don't bring that retarded article back up... its soo completely biased and the data they used is very inaccurate and misleading.

As for what you were looking for, I'm pretty sure it ended with one person able to do it, but it required the user click a bunch of stuff and allow the attack to work... so it wasn't automated just by viewing bad content on a webpage (think it was an email that the hacker sent to the apple tech).

another crying fan girl in denial.
I am now using the fat Ipod nano, guess how many "updates" for the firmware to fix the bugs in less than 3 months?
I had one failure when updating the firmware and had to "low format" the hardrive, and now it is still having random freeze when i use that thing.
Apple cant make a simple little device works in the way that it should, what is so surprising about all the loopholes of its much larger software? Apple cant make things better, just stop crying and get over it.

 

[jmackay]

another crying fan girl in denial.
I am now using the fat Ipod nano, guess how many "updates" for the firmware to fix the bugs in less than 3 months?
I had one failure when updating the firmware and had to "low format" the hardrive, and now it is still having random freeze when i use that thing.
Apple cant make a simple little device works in the way that it should, what is so surprising about all the loopholes of its much larger software? Apple cant make things better, just stop crying and get over it.

Bugs = Security issue now huh? Well ok lets count how many times I've patched things on my PC... oh about 50,000,000,000 of them. Lets call all the patches for random software security exploits cuz thats the cool thing to do, nevermind those damn facts and truths.