Interesting Article I read this AM......

Apple's days of benign hacker neglect may be numbered - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

An expert on Apple Macintosh security on Wednesday said he had uncovered a way hackers could take over the computers and warned that the machines could soon see more hacker attention.

Computers using Apple Inc.'s Mac operating system haven't been an attractive target for hacker activity because of the relatively small share of the market they represent. About 1 in 10 computers use it.

That benign neglect from hackers has been a selling point for the Mac until now, leading many owners to believe they don't need the security software required on computers using Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows operating system. But Dino Dai Zovi the growing popularity of the Mac and Apple's iPhone could well change that.

Dai Zovi made his warning after reporting at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas that he has found a way hackers can take control of Macs and steal data even though it had been scrambled to ward off identity theft. "There is no magic fairy dust protecting Macs," Reuters quoted Dai Zovi as saying at the conference.

The news service quoted another Mac security expert attending the conference, Joel Yonts, as warning, "When the malware authors put out something that's really sophisticated we are going to have a whole population that is really vulnerable."

Another security expert at the conference told attendees of a way he had found that hackers could hijack the iPhone through a vulnerability in its browser software. Charlie Miller of Independent Security Advisers told Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) about the vulnerability beforehand and the company issued a patch ahead of his revelation at the conference.

 

The usual nonsense that people who lack an understanding of the fundamental difference between OS X and Windows tend to run up the flag pole.

It's also downright shoddy reporting. The "market the represent" is largely the educational and creative film/tv/audio market, which they just about completely own.

Market share has absolutely nothing to do with it. Nada. Zip. The reason OS X is immune to every one of the sorts of exploits used to compromise Windows boxes like so many drunk frat girls is the fundamental difference in the security model both employ.

OS X, like any UNIX, is virtually impossible to remotely compromise without some kind of social engineering taking place. Tricking an idiot into downloading something and providing their root password to a malicious program is not a remote exploit, it's an idiot exploit, and it'll happen on anything.

The sort of exploits that pop up every week for Windows, be it a browser hole, or yet another massive problem with the security model of the OS itself, simply do not exist for any UNIX flavor, of which OS X is one.

 

Simba to the rescue Your knowledge is unparalleled ! (no pun intended)

 

Absolutely right - but shoddy reporting and sensationalistic headlines make waves, generate hits, and sell ads.

 

Leave it to Simba to so succinctly sum up a situation.

Plus 1 for pithiness.