Hackers Confirm Apple Getting More Attention

[Osiris]

Hackers Confirm Apple Getting More Attention

Confirming what people here have been saying for months, hackers at the Defcon Black Hat conference in Las Vegas talked about how Apple products are getting more attention from the vulnerability exploitation scene. Statistics are one thing but when there's a presentation at the conference and it's got over a thousand people wanting to hear about Apple software hacking, that's something else entirely.

"There are a lot more people getting into it and really getting their hands dirty," said Hotchkies, who noted an obvious spike this year in the number of DefCon attendees toting Macintosh laptops. "I've been seeing a lot of reverse engineering on the Apple platform."
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[syntrax]

yay!!! time to see how many security holes the mac has

 

[Kharn]

It has a few but a stock OSX passes shields up much better than a comparable windows machine.

 

[Ric0h]

I just wanna see what will happen to mac once their products start getting viruses.

Thats like the only great feature Mac had.....

 

[Kharn]

No just no let me put a stop to this right now, OSX was an always was vulnerable to malware it just didn't have much attention payed to it, The first thing I did when i got a mac was install avast because there was a small amount of malware out there for it I dislike the adverts that say "OSX dosent get malware..." it can an will get malware if you dont protect yourself from it.

OSX is now getting more attention because its growing in market share it's only natural that the more popular a bit of software / OS is it will become a target.

 

[Baez]

Even Linux isn't virus proof.

 

[Kharn]

No OS is totally secure some are more secure than others but nothing is imposable. Considering the history of malware and how inventive it's creators can be I am not surprised at all that this hasn't happened sooner, my only last niggling problem with Apple is the false an smug sense of security they seem to have oh we have never had malware...

Need I say Elc Cloner any one? worlds first virus an it was made with an targeted mac's.

 

[Lexluethar]

Nothing is virus proof. Just a virus has to be written for that platform, and up to this point no hacker gave to s**ts about mac, so they didn't write the code.

I'm willing to bet that although there will be a spike in the amount of virus's written for mac (therefore more macs getting them), i still dont' think it will ever be as high as windows. Reason being is until you can maintain a server farm with a mac product, or run a large (100+) business with just macs, you won't see as many virus's/malware targeting macs and windows.

As sax said, this has nothing to do with how 'bullet proof' mac is, the only reason they haven't had issues is no one has written things for mac.

 

[Kharn]

Nothing is virus proof. Just a virus has to be written for that platform, and up to this point no hacker gave to s**ts about mac, so they didn't write the code.

Look at pics from the older defcons, an you will see a large number of Mac's, mostly iBooks.

I'm willing to bet that although there will be a spike in the amount of virus's written for mac (therefore more macs getting them), i still dont' think it will ever be as high as windows. Reason being is until you can maintain a server farm with a mac product, or run a large (100+) business with just macs, you won't see as many virus's/malware targeting macs and windows.

There is Indiana University uses a 9 xserve cluster, There is one more that uses 250 Xservs for medical research, Apples own data center has a stupidly high number of Xservs, All apple stores have atleast 2 of them as well. There is a growing number of them showing up in design studios to boot.

There is companies that use mac's office wide as well, you will be surprised just how many there are out there.

As sax said, this has nothing to do with how 'bullet proof' mac is, the only reason they haven't had issues is no one has written things for mac.

Things have been writen for the mac, They have just been so uncommon an normaly they where exploits that got patched.

 

[jetskidude911]

Well I guess it was bound to happen some time.

Still, I think as long as the end user is safe about web browsing and installing programs, there shouldn't be a problem.

I ran Windows for years without anti-virus protection and never had any problems. I was rather careful about the sites I went to and the programs I installed.