Apple Pledges to Take Care of Malware for Macs

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[citation][nom]mobrocket[/nom]MSFT should run their own mac vs pc commerical making fun of this[/citation]

Your kidding right? Somehow, I don't think Microsoft's marketing department would think such a move wise.
 
Back up, back up, back up. Even a experienced user may hit some wrong key by mistake.

I knew Apple would address this. Not because is Apple per se or because of the leaked docs but because even if you hate Apple consider they still have very valuable engineers inside just as any other mayor company. It doesn't makes then invulnerable, less vulnerable or free from responsibilities however or free from a big attack as it happened to SONY. Apple needs to invest all they can in security and reliability and create public awareness and this is where I think the Apple haters have a major point. Most of the time Apple is muted about it.

Mac, Linux or PC everyone still needs to protect their very valuable files and it is the user who needs to understand once the files are on a compromised or bad system or HD they could be lost forever.
 
The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware.
So the message will sound the same as it did for the virus "your machine is infected" funny. And I guess it'll work because it worked the first time.

Apple's attention to defending its users against this malware is nice, but now the company has set a new precedent. With the growing popularity of Macs, the cases of targeted malware can only increase.
I get how others understood that Marcus meant that apple was doing something revolutionary, but just the absurdity of that made me think that he meant revolutionary only for apple.

Anyway, I don't know how this malware is related to how secure an OS or a browser is. It is a program installed by the user, with the personal info inserted by the user in the program. THese are mind games, not viruses. More like security holes in user's minds.
 
[citation][nom]neblix[/nom]Can't just boot into safe mode and delete the virus?[/citation]
No need to boot into safe mode.

All you need to do is kill the macdefender process with the Activity Monitor or the Terminal and delete the macdefender.app from your applications folder.
job done.
 
At last! Hopefully there'll be lots more malware for Mac in the future... I hate it when iSheep mumbles about how "there are no viruses on Mac".

Don't know how to protect yourself against malware - don't go near a computer. And yes, that also refers to people who "just need to do simple work and e-mail" (aka seniors, "people who aren't computer geeks" and your mom). An analogy for it would be like driving a car without knowing the traffic rules. If you aren't sure how something works - don't mess with it.
 
[citation][nom]Flynn_Serlant[/nom]I love how Apple only provides aid like this to its consumers after there's a leak showing how they're a soulless company who truly doesn't give two ****s about their customers.[/citation]
u hit the nail on the head with that 1
 
[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]Mileage may vary. I can attest to the exact opposite. In my experience, the Mac users who have been tech savvy turned out to be *nix users... or former *nix users. The rest... complete morons. I seriously can't tell you how many times I've had a Mac user ask me why a .exe file wouldn't install... its actually kind of sad.[/citation]

It also goes the other way, how many Win users can't figure out why the .app or .dmg will not run? It is all contingent upon experience. The "malware" being discussed required the end-use to install it. A rather crude way to gain entry and only the fool falls for such, and these fools play with both Win and OSX.

Why is Marcus always throwing out flame bait? Impress us with your tech savvy. Do some research and write some decent tech articles. No copy, paste, edit please.
 
[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]No need to boot into safe mode.All you need to do is kill the macdefender process with the Activity Monitor or the Terminal and delete the macdefender.app from your applications folder.job done.[/citation]
Oh, I see, I was assuming this was one of the malware-pretendos that block all the processes on your computer. I actually just got one today, took 3 minutes to get into safe mode and remove it. I couldn't just kill it because it intercepted task manager (as well as ctrl + alt + delete)

If it doesn't intercept your processes then how bad of a virus can this really be? 0_o
 
LOL I have to laugh at the WIN-HEAD fanboys.
Windows user:: PC's Windowzz PWNZZZ.. We have our own Mailware support number to ring.
Mac user:: Err why? We don't have one.
Windows user:: HAHH!!! Noob We PAWNZZ You cuzz we have a phone number to ring. you sux.

I have to laugh.. give me a count.. how many viruses for windows.. and how many for mac's? Reasonable for the Support line for WinCrap right? Nuff Said.

The security of windows 7 is better but still totally useless. You cannot compare security of both O/S's, as Unix is by far more secure and less buggy.

 
lmao, wow the bad PR this virus generated was just a week or two away from decimating apple sales completely. i had noticed the retailers heavily pushing anti virus software on mac users all the sudden which made alot of people start asking why due to their oblivious nature and false sense of security. it only made me chuckle when i pulled up the tech sites articles all pertaining to the fact macs now have major viruses and to top it off i pulled up the PSN hack along side screen shot and set it as the backgrounds on all the pc desktops nearby.
 
I love arguments based completely on logical fallacies.

Windows is exploited more because there are more Windows geeks than there are Unix/Linux geeks. WELL DUH. Hell its probably more than 10,000:1 or more odds wise.

'Nix doesn't really make sense to most people because none of it is natural. Its an OS made by programming super geeks filled with jargon and really bad truncations, making most of us never want to learn about it enough to use it, let alone hack it.

Can any of you guess what the command "GREP" does based on the name alone? For the people here that do, did you honestly guess right before you read or were told about it?

Anyone use the vi editor and say "wow this is easy and totally makes sense!" I seriously doubt it.

Windows became popular because DOS already took over the world by taking the idea of command line Unix and making an understandable, sensible version of it.

Sure DOS had some unnatural commands too, but many of less obvious ones were taken from Unix. Like "cd" for "change directory". But at least MS took stupid commands from Unix such as "ls" for "list structure" and changed them to more obvious ones. Like, in this case, "dir" for directory.

Many of us here mastered DOS before we were even 10 years old, including myself. I took Linux in my uni degree and felt like I was learning calculus in Cantonese.

This is why we have these stupid arguments now. OSX tends to be more secure not because Unix is better, it's because most of us never want to deal with the geeky programming bs that lies underneath its pretty face.
 
^ +1... This is SO true. Linux has been great for me so far, but unless you have someone to teach you all the stuff, you won't figure it out. How about emacs and its horrible-mapped shortcuts? (Press CTRL+X and then tap H to... select everything, and I still can't remember how to copy selected texts... lol) Or the "cat" command that does a whole bunch of different things (crunch files together, create new text files, etc.)?

Unix is great, but not so popular exactly for that reason - most of these things can be done through the GUI in Windows, and those that can't are not needed for an average home user. Thus Unix dominates servers, and Windows took over personal computers.

Best security suite: some brain. Don't connect to the Internet unless you need to (aka switch off the net PHYSICALLY when you don't need it), switch off Autorun (done in 10 seconds once and forever) for all drives, and don't click on stupid links. You're good to go. I'm not running any antivirus software, and if I install one, it finds no issues. As it was said before, security vulnerability #1 is between the keyboard and the chair.
 
For the longest of time Apple lulled technologically pre-lieterate morons to its over priced closed computing platforms with the claim that they were less susceptible to viri and malware. Viri writers considered Apple silly and not worthy of their effort in part because there were so few of them. This is now changing. I am curious as to how the propagandist US-media-child Mr Jobs is going to handle matters going forward.





 
"A recent phishing scam has targeted Mac users by redirecting them from legitimate websites to fake websites which tell them that their computer is infected with a virus. The user is then offered Mac Defender "anti-virus" software to solve the issue. "

I can imagine how the typical iCrapple moron reacts to this. He opens his wallet and bends over. iISTOODUMB!
 
"At last! Hopefully there'll be lots more malware for Mac in the future... I hate it when iSheep mumbles about how "there are no viruses on Mac"."

The iShleep will surely make a laughing spectacle. I still love it when the fucking morons match their clothing to their iCrap case and sit at some coffee shop facing out in order to initiate eye games with people who see them using their iAmtoodumb machines. The fucking imbeciles can't even realize how stupid they look! Ignorance is definitely bliss!!!!!

 
The days of "we make an OS, we're not a security company" are over. If you want to be in the OS business, you had better get ready to tackle security problems. It took MS a long time to realize this, and cheers that apple is finally jumping on that boat as well.
 
[citation][nom]vic20[/nom]I love arguments based completely on logical fallacies.Windows is exploited more because there are more Windows geeks than there are Unix/Linux geeks.[/citation]

Your statement is not necessarily true. The Unix/Linux geeks have more important things to do then write programs whose sole intent is to destroy the work of others, and are usually hiding out in the basements of science and engineering labs. Too many of the Win geeks are bored little kids and soul-less jerks from unknown regions of Europe and China with no morals. While they try to steal personal information, the Unix geeks are working at trying to find solutions to n-th dimensional hypercubes in n-th dimensional space. It is more of a matter of priorities and not numbers.
 
Apple.com | "It doesn't get PC Viruses." That's because it gets Mac viruses 😉

Read on:

Safeguard your data. By doing nothing.
With virtually no effort on your part, Mac OS X defends against viruses and other malicious applications, or malware. For example, it thwarts hackers through a technique called “sandboxing” — restricting what actions programs can perform on your Mac, what files they can access, and what other programs they can launch. Other automatic security features include Library Randomization, which prevents malicious commands from finding their targets, and Execute Disable, which protects the memory in your Mac from attacks.

 
Execute Disable Bit is not Apple-specific technology... Malicious command: how about "sudo rm -rf" followed by user password, which is pretty easy to convince an average ignorant Mac user to type into their terminal? 😉 Biggest vulnerability is still between the keyboard and the chair. Now, I want to see your Library Randomization prevent THAT!
 
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