[ero2]

Title says it all, I heard about the trojan, and the Office macro back in the day, but besides low market share which is quickly moving up...I heard there was a reason because of the base system and the way it behaves...? Can someone fill me in, thanks!

[TETENAL]

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/ap...es_480x376.mov

Apple - Get a Mac - Not on a Mac

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

UNIX babe.

[mduell]

There have been a few viruses for OS X over the years, but not many. Most of the malware for Windows (and other platforms) these days is not viruses, but instead trojans, rootkits, and worms. OS X has a decent security model for everyday desktop use (enterprise use is another story, and that's where OS X is missing the capabilities for a few key certifications), although there are a few things that are or have been too automated for my comfort. I think marketshare plays a bigger role than most people give it credit for; you shouldn't expect malware share to be the same as OS share, even with equally secure OSs.

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

UNIX babe.

UNIX has little to do with it, and OS X on PowerPC isn't UNIX anyway.

[besson3c]

A lot of these arguments in favor of OS X have to do with the fact that Windows XP has a ridiculously lame and inferior security model/design. Many of these same arguments don't apply or don't apply in the same way with Vista. One of us could elaborate on all of this, but I"m not sure what sort of technical depth you are looking for.

mduell: I disagree that Unix has little to do with it. Many of the underpinnings of OS X (save the Leopard firewall) have been hammered on for years. Various BSD flavors frequently are installed onto network appliances for a reason - they work extremely well. Many of the other pieces that comprise of the BSD subsystem in OS X are shared among enterprise class servers that similarly have been hammered on for years in very high profile environments. Where OS X gets hairy is in the GUI layer stuff that Apple has developed, and the social engineering sorts of things that sort of play on the tradeoffs between convenience and security.

[mduell]

While I appreciate the history of usage for BSD, I don't think the Windows analog of the BSD subsystem is what the majority (or even a significant fraction) of Windows malware is targeting. The recent 'stripper' trojan horse is a good example of typical Windows malware.

I was just being a caps pedant; BSD isn't UNIX either.

[mindwaves]

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/08/01.12.shtml

[Horsepoo!!!]

...dammit, mindwaves beat me to it.

[besson3c]

BSD is indeed UNIX, take a look at the headline on The FreeBSD Project

I agree that malware doesn't target the Windows analog of the BSD subsystem, but it is much harder to hijack BSD by brute force attack or exploitation, so these malware scripts have to basically be self contained and reinvent the wheel under OS X (while fooling the user into providing their admin password if they are to be embedded into teh system as a whole rather than that particular user account).

[ghporter]

The underpinnings-not just "based on Free-BSD" (which is not "Unix" in the "GNU"s Not Unix" sense)-are the biggest thing. OS X is made up of cooperative and interactive modules whereas Windows is made up of enormous trees of "dependencies" wherein one executable depends on several/dozens/hundreds of other files, many of them also executables, to do anything. So if you goober up one of the important, heavily "depended on" files, you've goobered up the OS. In general, this means that it's very difficult to lock down what can and can't be done within the confines of one user's context, and that means that you have security holes that malicious code can slip into.

The problem is that Mac users as a group are complacent about "no viruses" and have a habit of not applying critical thinking to situations that would get a Windows user into a world of trouble. If it looks too good to be true, it certainly is. Anything free is worth what you pay for it. And Anna Kournikova really does NOT want you to have exclusive pictures of her in the buff-at this site only. If Mac users do not get smart about this sort of thing, someone is going to find a way to hurt us, individually, by taking advantage of our complacency and (frankly) greed for whatever it being offered.

[mduell]

The OP may want to read one of the (many) previous threads on this same topic. They tend to get derailed pretty easily.

Originally Posted by mindwaves 

Mac OS X Leopard Certified as 100% UNIX || The Mac Observer

Only on Intel. Note my original cheeky comment referred to PowerPC.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

BSD is indeed UNIX, take a look at the headline on The FreeBSD Project

FreeBSD, where OS X got the "BSD subsystem" userland code, is not UNIX. The original BSD (back in the 70s) was de facto UNIX, but I don't see any evidence of certification when BSD was deprecated (at 4.4-Lite).

[besson3c]

mduell: what is this certification, where does it come from, and what does it matter? Who controls the Posix group?

[Simon]

These threads have the tendency to become very nasty. How about we just settle on a few simple facts and leave religion aside for once.

Do viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, etc. exist only in the Windows world? No. Could they exist (or spread) in OS X? Sure. Do they? Only very few, and AFAIK all of them have required either social engineering (IOW PEBCAC) or were proof of principle examples that were never observed in the wild. What's the reason? There are several, but does it really matter? Bottom line is OS X users suffer less damage and have to less to worry about. That's a great thing. Should Mac users therefore be careless and/or ignorant? No. Just because you live in a safe neighborhood doesn't mean you leave the door wide open.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by mduell 

There have been a few viruses for OS X over the years, but not many.

With the exception of Oompah-Loompah (which was a failure of a virus and a very poor trojan), what others have there been as, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single one? There have been a handful of trojans, but, as far as I am aware, no successful viruses.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by JKT 

With the exception of Oompah-Loompah (which was a failure of a virus and a very poor trojan), what others have there been as, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single one? There have been a handful of trojans, but, as far as I am aware, no successful viruses.

I got one once in an e-mail.

It asked me kindly to delete a couple of random files on my hard drive and forward it to my entire address book.

I declined.

Close call, though.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

mduell: what is this certification, where does it come from, and what does it matter? Who controls the Posix group?

Certification that the OS complies with one of the UNIX standards, it comes from the company that owns the UNIX trademark, and it matters if you want to call something UNIX. POSIX is an IEEE/ISO/IEC standard; even Windows is POSIX compatible.

Originally Posted by JKT 

With the exception of Oompah-Loompah (which was a failure of a virus and a very poor trojan), what others have there been as, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single one? There have been a handful of trojans, but, as far as I am aware, no successful viruses.

Are you using 'successful' as a weasel word to ignore the proof-of-concept viruses? Leap-A was a virus (injected itself into other apps without the users permission).

[olePigeon]

Back to the original question, there are no viruses yet. That doesn't mean there won't be.

There have been a few Proof-of-Concept trojan horses released by various anti-virus companies in a scare monger tactic to get people to buy their software. The most recent one that modifies DNS can't get onto your computer by accident, and relies on social engineering. I have a feeling Integro made that one and gave it to the porn sites, as they're the only company that claims to have a virus def for it.