This was also posted on Haverzine,

http://haverzine.com/kaspersky-apples-s ... microsoft/

Go figure.

Which is why Apple is implementing Gatekeeper in 10.8.

They wouldn't have to implement GateKeeper if they knew how to develop software instead of stealing BSD stuff from 10 years ago. Darwin is like swiss cheese.

Gatekeeper isn't a real solution.

It's like the Government "solving crime" by telling everyone to stay in doors, disconnect everything from the outside world and their food will be bought to their house by state-approved private enterprises.

That system will fail from time to time, heavily restricts what you're able to do with your own property and does not protect against blackhats who'll just punch through anyway.

It's a case of treating the symptoms rather than the causes. And it's why Apple are still 10 years behind MS in terms of security - MS quit that assumption that AVs and Firewalls would solve everything back after XP SP1. Security is a big part of everything MS does now.

Code is audited for common mistakes that could pose a security risk. They have a large team dedicated to patching any flaws that are found. They proactively target and assist law enforcement in targetting criminal elements that rely on these security flaws. They look to minimise surface area, and when they do have to open something up, they look to minimise the damage that could happen in the event it's compromised. They look beyond simple technical issues and recognise that social engineering is the dominant attack vector and research ways in which this can be tackled.

They're a far cry from their attitude of 10 years ago, and Apple's attitude today.

I thought this was going to be something Ballmer said and was waiting to see the replies, but its nice to see it come from a 3rd party. Unix/Linux systems are pretty secure by nature, but nothing is immune to viruses and hacks. Macs have managed to stay mostly virus free for a while only because they represented such a small part of the market, but as their market share grows we will see more viruses, etc being targeted at them.

Not too long from now Macs will slowly be targeted maybe even more than PC's virus wise. Seeing Apple's stocks rise everyday and how Apple is so "prestigious" more people of the public will buy more macs, which is what hackers want, I bet they're tired of infecting windows but will also move to OSX.

They should've thought of that earlier... Now they got what they deserved.

Sounds like to me that everyone who believed the "Macs don't get viruses" advertising are going to get bit really hard...

Why would they deserve it?

But Macs don't get viruses... by which I mean Windows malware, when the Mac only runs OSX.

But traditionally speaking, Mac's don't get viruses.
It's also worth noting that this comes from Kaspersky, a corporation that makes it's money off of viruses and malware. It's in their best interest to get people nervous about viruses on any platform.


Absolutely, damn those dirty Apple users who got away with not needing antivirus software for 20+ years and still get away with it today.
(Remember, hype like this stems from Flashback - the first major virus that the platform has seen in years.)

Playing the semantics game is pointless.

It's a widely accepted fact that Apple have had a largely cavalier attitude to securing their users devices. The only security that interests them is securing their walled garden.

The most interesting statistic Kaspersky had to offer is that while malware that affects Macs is still relatively rare, malware that uses Macs as a distribution platform for attacking Windows PCs is much more prevalent (as high as 1 in 7 Macs having this form of malware). This says all you need to know about Mac security: Macs themselves are a low-value target. Their greatest value to malware writers is as low-hanging fruit that can serve as a launching point from which to attack a higher value target - the PC. Once again, Apple have been exposed as the weak link in a mixed-platform world. Why, as a malware writer, should one spend an increasingly rare Windows exploit when I can use a Mac exploit to expose a whole number of Windows PCs - it's likely that these Macs will share a network with PCs and getting malware into the same network where devices more readily trust each other and share resources is a huge bonus. And its well documented that Apple takes longer to patch and patches less of its security flaws than any major competitor in the OS market.

When will people admit that this is simply not acceptable? Until customers hold Apple to account over their shocking and reckless negligence, they will not invest time nor money in correcting this disgraceful situation.

Virus does not equal Windows malware... Viruses can be on any system.



Because they didn't think about it earlier, as it says in the quote.

Oh, my bad, but yes while they think of ridiculous prices they let their guard down I guess.

Well, I don't really know if they thought about security (thats just what the quote said). They have managed good so far though.

apple first to fall at pwn2own EVERY YEAR nuf said

Edit: Considering the length of my "reply" I moved my reply to this thread instead making this one easier to read... me and my "short" replies... .

Yes, that's 0-day exploits that get fixed. Any system may have one vulnerability like that.

But what to say, a 2004 virus ran on my Windows 7 machine with all the updates on January 2012 and infected most exe files. I had a hard time removing it. Now THAT'S a problem.

You're right. You ran an infected, and therefore unverified EXE with sufficient permissions to be able to do so.

And that's the true security flaw with any system - the user. At least MS are trying to do something about that. Apple just pretend the problem doesn't exist.

Yeah, hounsell. I wanted to run this program usermode only (is there even a "Run program without Administrator" thing on Windows). I don't usually run apps under root, do I? And I'm pretty much sure I got that virus from a fake game release.