Adware sample targets Mac OS X

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SP2 is not

SP2 is not "a whole new release", it's a mountain of bug fixes wrapped up with a service pack to the most bloated web browser out there. It also hosed a significant number of systems when it was released because they were infected with malware that prevented its proper installation. It would be roughly equivalent to claiming that OSX 10.4.8 is a whole new release of OSX when it is nothing more than patches to 10.4 and writing it so shabbily that the installation of the update could easily go south badly enough to render the system unbootable. As a PC technician, SP2 was almost as much of a boon for business as Blaster was.

While we're on the subject of new OS versions and their frequency, Win98 offered no functionality not found in Win95c and WinME offered no new functionality from Win98SE. Thus you had for the consumer product cycle with genuine new features for Windows 1991: Windows 3.1, 1996: Windows 95 (first available retail copies in most locations), 2001: Windows XP, 2007: Windows Vista (retail). Twice during the Windows 95 life cycle, Microsoft fleeced it's customer base by claiming that what was no more than another service pack was a whole new version and charging them $89+ for upgrades.

I walked away from Windows in 1999 when the latest service pack, WindowsME was far less stable than its predecessor. Windows zealots like to laugh when a new version of OSX cuts out a few more 7+ year old machines from the compatibility lists. Meanwhile, XP will not support any machine built more than 2 years before its release, and Vista's most stunning features will not function in the manner in which they are/will be advertised on even one year old commodity machines.

The new windows release virtually orphans every off the shelf system more than a year old, while a new OSX release supports hardware that is 6-7 years old, and a current linux release (properly trimmed) will function adequately on even 486DX2's (if you don't need the GUI) and second generation Pentiums (even pre-MMX) will run minimalist GUI's fairly well.

Proof of Concept code does not an exploit make. Yesterday's release of 31 bug fixes in the 7th security update this year (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304829) is nothing to sneeze at, and does not affect this issue, but here is an important point everyone seems to be missing: Because it does not require administrative privs, it only affects your personal account.

I agree with some of the previous posters that it was a poor choice on Apple's part to make the default account an admin account, but then again Windows also makes the default an admin account. As far as stupid OS design decisions go, it's not quite as dumb as providing a well known administrative account with no password on every install of the consumer version of your OS that the majority of your users do not even know exists.

My Macs and Linux boxes are not immune to attacks. They are, however, far less vulnerable as a direct result of OS design. The real issue with this PoC exploit is not the fact that it can (supposedly) install a library into the user's personal Library, but the fact that the code that does it supposedly executes silently. Looking at the code sample shown in the screenshot of the F-Secure blog, it would appear that the exploit requires the ability to run terminal commands. It would be interesting to see if setting a "standard" user's shell to an unusable value prevented its use or if explicitly calls a shell.

Posted by: bladehawke@...   Posted on: 11/29/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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