Mac Virus Paranoia. Read this and don' t be taken in by Symantec

[reprobate]

http://lowendmac.com/musings/05/0322.html

Nobody is claiming that OS X is invulnerable, only that nobody has found a way in and exploited it. Not yet. If OS X has an Achilles' heel, I think malware authors are clever enough to identify it and take advantage of it.

Just imagine the fame of being the first to crack OS X! If anything, breaking into OS X has to be the golden chalice of cracking.

The simple fact that nobody has yet compromised OS X means that it's pretty secure. Sure, there will be more efforts made to hack in, but until once succeeds, we don't need Symantec and Trend Micro spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt so Mac users will invest in antivirus software that has nothing to do.

The ravings of Symantec are nothing more than self-serving propaganda aimed at spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt to create a market for a product that no Mac user needs at present.

[alfredo]

1. A friend in Poland said the Apple Poland

website got hacked. It runs Xserve. He showed me a screenshot of it.

That may have been just the fault of slipshod work at the admin level.

[Xithras]

2. I disagree. It's just vulnerable to different types of viruses.

OSX, for all the raving, is just BSD with a pretty GUI and BSD is vulnerable to viruses if not consistently patched by a sysadmin. One of the reasons that BSD has such a good security record is that up until very recently it was only rarely used outside of academia and datacenters where paid sysadmins promptly applied patches every time they were released. OSX users won't be so vigilant, I'm sure.

If you really think BSD is so secure, type "BSD Exploits" into Google and marvel at the hit's you'll get. Because BSD is often used in high $$ server installations, there are paid crackers who spend every single day trying to find a new exploit to get into those systems. The fact that Apple chose BSD as the basis for OSX simply gave them that many more targets.

The only thing that OSX has been invulnerable from, so far, are worms. Trojans and other less automated viruses still make it onto these systems with some regularity, usually thanks to the guy at the keyboard who decides to install that "cool toolbar app" he found on a porn site.

[Deja Q]

3. Forgive me,

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

The prior 2 responses say all that needs to be said. One has to remain vigilant. Not blissly if not arrogantly deciding that his computer is immune to everything simply because it's not Windows. Sloppy thinking. It's also human thinking.