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resuna · Mar 30, 2005, 08:37 AM

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5644762.html
http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/159907841

A week after the Symantec FUD bomb? Puh-lease!

Do they really think this kind of obvious astroturf campaign fools anyone? No, of course Mac OS X isn't immune to spyware. I can think of a dozen places to hide it. But you have to get it into the system first, and that's the real trick. Pretty much the ONLY avenue they can use is social engineering... there's no equivalent to the massive and unfixable cross-zone exploits on Windows.

malvolio · Mar 30, 2005, 10:29 AM

Well, the guy from Gartner does say that any spyware threat is "down the road."
As to how one can get spyware (or any malware) onto a Mac, there is one obvious scenario that has occurred to me:
A new hot program is released, say the next version of Photoshop. Said program uses an installer.
A hacker modifies the original installation package to include his/her malware. He/she then seeds it to all the P2P networks.
Presto! Thousands of software pirates end up with infected Macs.

OptimusG4 · Mar 30, 2005, 10:45 AM

Originally posted by malvolio:
Well, the guy from Gartner does say that any spyware threat is "down the road."
As to how one can get spyware (or any malware) onto a Mac, there is one obvious scenario that has occurred to me:
A new hot program is released, say the next version of Photoshop. Said program uses an installer.
A hacker modifies the original installation package to include his/her malware. He/she then seeds it to all the P2P networks.
Presto! Thousands of software pirates end up with infected Macs.

It also happened last year with the Office 2004 'trial version' on limewire. They guy had enough balls to say he actually thought MS would release it that way.

malvolio · Mar 30, 2005, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
It also happened last year with the Office 2004 'trial version' on limewire. They guy had enough balls to say he actually thought MS would release it that way.

So somebody already did it?
Damn, I knew I should have patented that idea!

Millennium · Mar 30, 2005, 11:16 AM

Originally posted by resuna:
Do they really think this kind of obvious astroturf campaign fools anyone?

That's precisely the problem; it does fool a lot of people. Worse, most of the people it fools are in management positions -Gartner reports have a very good reputation in those circles- and those people have the power to make decisions on what technologies to use in certain situations.

That's one of the major reasons that Microsoft has been able to keep power despite the increasingly-obvious inferiority to every other technology out there: get in bed with Gartner, and you're in bed with managers nationwide.

OptimusG4 · Mar 30, 2005, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by malvolio:
So somebody already did it?
Damn, I knew I should have patented that idea!

Yea it was horribly hilarious, at least for me. He cried about it on MacFixit hoping to get sympathy but instead we all mocked him for being so stupid.

JHromadka · Mar 30, 2005, 04:06 PM

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
Yea it was horribly hilarious, at least for me. He cried about it on MacFixit hoping to get sympathy but instead we all mocked him for being so stupid.

I remember that. "Hi, I found a copy of Office on the intarweb. It's only 1MB in size so should be much faster! I'm downloading it now."

dcmacdaddy · Mar 30, 2005, 04:18 PM

Originally posted by malvolio:
Well, the guy from Gartner does say that any spyware threat is "down the road."
As to how one can get spyware (or any malware) onto a Mac, there is one obvious scenario that has occurred to me:
A new hot program is released, say the next version of Photoshop. Said program uses an installer.
A hacker modifies the original installation package to include his/her malware. He/she then seeds it to all the P2P networks.
Presto! Thousands of software pirates end up with infected Macs.

Let them get infected computers. Serves 'em right, then.