Comments on: Mac OS X Report: Virus Infects 600,000 Computers

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:21:56 +0000

Yeah like to see all those happy Windows users, laughing about those stupid Mac users, but the fact is those Mac users get a “threat” every year or so, in the meantime those same happy Windows users get one or more EVERY DAY.

I shouldn’t laugh about that, maybe it’s better to join forces instead of biting our heads off and start to investigate who’s behind all those threats.

You should pose the question, who benefits the most of all these threats?
Then maybe the answer is closer than you think.

By: antonio

antonio — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:18:42 +0000

windows over 100,000 virus treaths spyware malware hacks exploits
mac how many less than 100

By: Patsy

Patsy — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:57:25 +0000

I absolutely love the Mac cult followers, “Mac is perfectly safe” … Um you know why? It has nothing to do with macs ability to write or defend code. Its because they only up till this month owned LESS then a 15% market share in the computer industry. AKA, why would people bother writing a virus for 15% target, when they have an 80% target. MAC is now big enough that the writers of the code are turning their sites to teh mac bots who think they are safe and sound with their doors wide open.

Whos being the sheeple here? L2Code and youd understand. I personally cant wait for the next round.

By: Espen Løkken

Espen Løkken — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 05:32:26 +0000

Just to be clear – this is a Trojan and not a virus. I know that it is quite common to mix these together in one great pool. I still believe it is viable to distinguish between viruses and worms that are spread without any warning to your and other computer utilizing weaknesses in the os or trojans that are simply applications (in this case an application that fakes being an update).

The later is avoidable if the user pays attention to the warnings he is given.

I find it amusing that it is typically windows enthusiasts or anti-virus vendors that seems to prefer mixing them both into on big pool, thus enabling them to state that there are viruses on mac. As far as I know all virus-alerts on mac up until today has turned out to be trojans.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:42:31 +0000

Malware is not a virus. A virus is something that installs itself…malware asks for permission and these idiots didn’t know what the hell they were doing and THEY allowed it to be installed. When this has happened in the past the media made sure to point that out. But this must be a slow news week because every headline I see says “virus”.

So stop being sheeple. Macs are still perfectly safe…but they will never be FOOL proof.

By: Ravi

Ravi — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:41:00 +0000

Kaspersky is trying to create a market for its products in the Mac domain.

By: Tammi

Tammi — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:12:31 +0000

It doesn’t matter what operating system you use. It is only as secure as the idiot behind the keyboard. If the 600,000 figure is reasonably accurate, and the method for obtaining the count does seem reasonable, that’s about 1% of macs, “making Flashback roughly as common as Conficker was for Windows.” The argument about trojan vs. virus is silly. “After initial infection, Flashback pops open a Software Update window to try and obtain your administrative password, but it does so only to embed itself more deeply into your Mac. Even if you aren’t fooled at this point, you are still infected.” It can harvest personal data without obtaining your root password.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:46:39 +0000

This is coming from a LINUX user. Mac is based on Linux. Linux is built from the ground up with security in mind. The reason malware can’t spread so easily throughout a Linux based system is because it needs permissions to do certain actions, those of which could only be obtained through the user’s password (or root password). The only reason this “virus” spread was because it had gained root access, or an elevated privilege, to the system. I could just as easily ask you for your password and be able to inflict all sorts of damage to your system. Therefore you can’t just say Macs (Linux included) don’t get viruses just because they are less popular, they get them less because they are more secure. Period. (However I still prefer my Linux much much more over Mac…)

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:58:42 +0000

This is not the first virus to hit Apple. Just wait its going to just as bad for apple as it is for pc’s. Its not really that mac/linux is so much more secure its just less used then Windows. Mac and Linux make up less then 10% of the computers on the market and even less for MAC in the business world.

By: Dale

Dale — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:08:34 +0000

DOOIII, YEP Apple people think they are way above in the high tech stuff, so I’m actually (not really?) HAPPY this happened to their users, though I didn’t personally do it…Computer compromise can happen to anyone, Mac, or PC, and I find it hard to believe that Apple is SO ARROGANT, that they don’t warn their users until THREE, count ‘em, THREE months later of this problem…Me, even thogh it can be a BI%ch, am sticking with Microsoft AND KAPERSKY!!!