| WebProWorld
Dev Forum |
News
Feed on desktop/other sites?
I am trying to figure out a way to put make a news feed available for people to
put on their desktop and on their websites. Something where I would be...
Dot
net Treeview display problem on a MAC
I have a treeview control on my webpage. It works fine on a PC but gives me problems
on a MAC. The nodes repeat themselves when i open the page in a MAC. Please suggest
any possible fixes...
Rejected
email problem. Lookng for help.
I am using a PHP program designed to manage communications for multiple clients.
The program allows you to select a letter, check off the targeted customer and
then indicate who will be the...
|
|
| Recent Articles |
Gates
Has Google's Back On Censorship
Like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft has had to adjust its business practices to suit
Chinese government information control personnel, not that there's anything wrong
with that. On the topic of Google censoring content in China, the search advertising
company...
Fourteen
Percent Of Internet Visits ITunes
Many more visitors beat a path to the iTunes front door, with traffic increasing
dramatically year-over-year from December 2004 to December 2005. Nielsen//NetRatings
published a statement on the growth of iTunes traffic. An audience of 6.5 million
in...
Video
ITunes Boosts NBC, ABC
$1.99 downloads of recent episodes of shows like "The Office," "Lost," and "Desperate
Housewives" may have led to ratings gains for all three programs. The death of
television at the hands of the Internet isn't happening. In fact, the online world...
Lotusphere
Blooming With Apple News
IBM plans to make the latest Lotus Notes client compatible with Mac OS X, in a
move that could capitalize on the inherent anti-Microsoft sentiment typical in
the Apple user base. IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino event Lotusphere began this week,
and Big Blue...
Vanderpool, Intel Dual Core VT And Intel Macs
I (and a few others) been blabbering about this for a while but it seems that
very few people are really aware of what is about to happen here. These new Intel
dual core cpu's are going to change our computing world, and Apple is sitting
in the catbird seat...
|
|
|
02.09.06
Security
Through Obscurity Threatened As Macs Become More Popular?
 By
A.P. Lawrence
At Apple's in the eye of flaw
finders, Mac users are warned that the growing popularity of the platform
will attract viruses and security hacks.
An unsettling report states that:
At the recent ShmooCon hacking
conference, one security researcher found out the hard way that such venues can
be hostile, when an unknown hacker took control of the 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 a Apple PowerBook running the latest version of Mac OS X. The victim,
a security researcher who asked to remain anonymous, had locked down the system
prior to the conference and believes that a previously unknown exploit caused
the compromise. However, in the following weeks, forensics performed on the system
did not reveal any clues as to how the PowerBook had been compromised.
Hmmm. No clues? Did anyone think that maybe there was physical access to the machine
either before or during the conference? Or maybe the "security researcher" is
really just a security wannabe with "r00t" as his root password? Who knows - anonymous
and vague reports aren't worth the bits they are transmitted on.
Yes, of course there might be an unknown hack into Mac OS X. Might be. But this
kind of FUD isn't worth worrying about.
Oh, wait, there's more:
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. Security researchers themselves have moved over to Apple
computers in the past few years and have learned the ins and outs of the operating
system. The company's move to Intel-based hardware for its next-generation of
Macs also gives flaw finders familiar territory in which to look for bugs.
Aha! So it's that damn Intel CPU architecture that's been causing all of Microsoft's
problems! I knew it: virus writers are an incredibly stupid bunch who understand
nothing but 80x86 machine language, and moreover, that's all they need to know
to "hack wreavoc" on any operating system. That of course explains why Windows
viruses and worms have been so easily transported to Linux systems, completely
destroying any and all security there. BSD on x86 has also suffered at the hands
of these maniac virus coders, so much so that there are hardly any BSD x86 web
servers on the web that haven't been repeatedly p0wned. And now Apple is switching
to Intel? Idiots - can't they see this? Won't someone think of the children?
Yeah. Apple should be really worried about that.
We all know that it's the popularity of Microsoft that is the reason for all their
security problems. You do know that, right? If not, this article reminds you:
Finally, as Apple continues to garner more market share, the lure
of a larger set of targets will make attacks more likely, say security researchers.
Indeed. Of course some of us are old enough to have had experience with Apples
back in the late 80's and early 90's, long before OS X. Funny thing: Mac's had
viruses then. I can well remember chasing a virus through a big Mac Network and
I'm sure some of our readers here have done the same thing. Older Mac operating
systems had viruses and worms. How big a "target" was Mac then compared to now?
A heck of a lot smaller, I'd say. But they had malware problems - why was that?
I know the Microsoft crowd doesn't like it, but the simple fact is that Windows
is easy pickings. Microsoft
even admitted that themselves, which is why they had to start over from scratch
with Vista. Will Vista be more secure? Almost certainly (unless they screw it
up, which really is a possibility) but that's some day in the future. Right now,
Mac OS X is much safer and more secure than Windows in every respect. Will it
stay that way? Well, I'd say it's more likely that Vista will have problems from
the legacy baggage it has to carry, but sure, it's possible that OS X will be
badly breached. Possible, but not as likely as articles like this one suggest.
*Originally published at APLawrence.com
About the Author:
A.P. Lawrence provides SCO Unix and Linux consulting services
http://www.pcunix.com |
