Over 600,000 Macs Infected With Flashback Malware

[jaquith]

[citation][nom]-Jackson[/nom]I'm pretty sure a lot of "folks" will agree with me when I say PC has significantly more devoted followers than Mac[/citation]
DUH ReAlLy, tell me something I didn't know. Again, I have them BOTH PC & Mac.

Apple cannot be all that bad -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_capitalization#2012 made me rich!

 

[memadmax]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]oh yea Hackintosh. the kind of PC you have to get very specific parts for just to get OSX to install[/citation]

Pfft.... pls. I got macos x to run on every single one of my puters....

The only reason you have to be hardware dependent is when you use someones' build specific kexts......................................

There are others out there.....

 

[AznCracker]

You know after a few years of using a computer, I stopped getting viruses because I know how to prevent them from infecting my computer. It seems like only noobs get viruses.

 

[jaquith]

[citation][nom]azncracker[/nom]You know after a few years of using a computer, I stopped getting viruses because I know how to prevent them from infecting my computer. It seems like only noobs get viruses.[/citation]
Most folks get Viruses, Trojans, etc because of their Porn addictions and affinity to steal e.g. Warez and BitTorrent.

 

[moonzy]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]And you're doing all that on a Phenom II X2?! Get real. The Mac's have all that built-in and so do many PC's.Biased -- sure you are. I am probably the only one posting here with both a Mac and a PC and unbiased. If you're doing anything for production (Professional) -- Databases, Photoshop, Video or Sound editing, etc you're doing it typically on a Xeon based PC or Mac, or your mediocrity prevents you from using decent equipment. Mac's are pretty darn good for the creative folks, and it's one of the big reasons for its' devoted followers.[/citation]

Yeah, I'm doing all that on a Phenom II X2. Mac users can't even choose an AMD CPU.
Mediocrity?
I have no argument that Intel CPUs are faster, but an AMD CPU can do every single thing ANY Intel CPU can do, albeit slower sometimes. No complaints from me, I know what I got and it unlocks to a quad. The reason it's locked now is I'm testing my CPUs limits as it's a black edition and it's OC'd to 3.6. Tweaking your PC can be fun!

I am a creative type, but I certainly don't brand myself as an Apple user; And I've used Macs.
Nether do I live life in pursuit of the highest bench marks or brown nosing the Apple community.
I know there's Free Open Source Software out there for the masses. So, I use what I use. Like Libre Office and GIMP.
As for being a professional.... That's another story.
And there's tons of creative pro's that don't use Mac .

 

[moonzy]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]Most folks get Viruses, Trojans, etc because of their Porn addictions and affinity to steal e.g. Warez and BitTorrent.[/citation]
User's machines can get infected with adware, spyware, keyloggers and trojans from many a site besides porn. It's part of the internet and why people have AV ware and anti-spyware installed.

 

[Benihana]

Because of this article, I threw both my Mac and PC out the window and went back to Slackware Linux.

 

[jaquith]

[citation][nom]moonzy[/nom]Yeah, I'm doing all that on a Phenom II X2. Mac users can't even choose an AMD CPU.Mediocrity? I have no argument that Intel CPUs are faster, but an AMD CPU can do every single thing ANY Intel CPU can do, albeit slower sometimes. No complaints from me, I know what I got and it unlocks to a quad. The reason it's locked now is I'm testing my CPUs limits as it's a black edition and it's OC'd to 3.6. Tweaking your PC can be fun!I am a creative type, but I certainly don't brand myself as an Apple user; And I've used Macs.Nether do I live life in pursuit of the highest bench marks or brown nosing the Apple community.I know there's Free Open Source Software out there for the masses. So, I use what I use. Like Libre Office and GIMP.As for being a professional.... That's another story. And there's tons of creative pro's that don't use Mac .[/citation]
Listen, I'm not pooh-poohing your rig, and I really couldn't care less.

What I meant by "or your mediocrity prevents you from using decent equipment" is if you are a successful Professional you 'can' and 'will' get the correct equipment -- because your success affords you the opportunity to get it, and most importantly your time is more valuable than the equipment itself...i.e. you're losing money waiting and staring at a progress bar or for the task to complete.

 

[jaquith]

[citation][nom]moonzy[/nom]User's machines can get infected with adware, spyware, keyloggers and trojans from many a site besides porn. It's part of the internet and why people have AV ware and anti-spyware installed.[/citation]
On commercial sites to pickup a Virus, Trojan, Key-logger, you name it it's exceedingly rare. Though I've seen a JAVA exploit from a SuperPage ad banner. Further, you skipped right past part 2 Stealing. I said the two most common ways, and they are...

"Most folks get Viruses, Trojans, etc because of their Porn addictions and affinity to steal e.g. Warez and BitTorrent."

No doubt, you need a good AV as I've stated on the prior page.

 

[molo9000]

I always wonder how people manage to download these fake installers.
If I google "flash", the first 4 hits all link to the Adobe website. You actually have to put effort into downloading the wrong installer...

btw: Apple released two Java updates this week, fixing some vulnerabilities in Java.

[citation][nom]maddad[/nom]Since this is a virus posing as Adobe flash, makes me wonder if there were any Windows PC's infected. I find it curious that they only mentioned MAC infections.[/citation]
It's a Adobe Flash installer package for Mac. Windows users can't run it.
I'm sure there are plenty of fake Flash installers for Windows out there. No operating systems can protect you from trojans.

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]newsflash bud mac OSX is built on a form of Linux so you FAIL[/citation]

Mac OS X is built on a kernel called "XNU", which is based on parts of FreeBSD and the Mach kernel.
It's completely unrelated to the Linux kernel.

 

[Ragnar-Kon]

Dang can't post anything about Macs or Apple on this website without people blowing up.

Anyway, I have both Macs and PCs, like both for different reasons, use both on a daily basis. Never held any illusions about the security of either operating system. As Apple computers become more popular, we'll start seeing more viruses for them, simple as that.

Btw, this Apple vs PC debate is funny to read. Reminds me of the US political system, people can just never agree about anything

 

[moonzy]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]On commercial sites to pickup a Virus, Trojan, Key-logger, you name it it's exceedingly rare. Though I've seen a JAVA exploit from a SuperPage ad banner. Further, you skipped right past part 2 Stealing. I said the two most common ways, and they are..."Most folks get Viruses, Trojans, etc because of their Porn addictions and affinity to steal e.g. Warez and BitTorrent."No doubt, you need a good AV as I've stated on the prior page.[/citation]
BS. PCs's can get infected without browsing porn or stealing. And BTW, people actually use bittorrent for
other things than stealing. Such as Wikileaks and many other downloads.

You're just trying to make Mac sound like to top of the crop. Which it's not.

Media, e-mail, downloads, installers can all have some type of malware without it being some crime
as you're supposing. And Mac users are not all crime-less users. It goes both ways for Mac and PC users.

 

[lordstormdragon]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]Hey I can keep this up all night. Dude, you get what you pay for. One of my SQL servers costs more than a car. I have no cheap computers and I appreciate quality. Again, I have plenty of PCs -> http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2320509 What do you 'do' with your PC?Maybe you might want to look at a Mac and know something (anything) about it first:[/citation]

Celebrating mediocrity? The Apple case is nothing special, and certainly nothing to get worked up about. It's a poor design and inflexible at best.

And don't rant on about Mac users actually USING their computers to compute anything. There's one lone douchebag in the CGI industry, for example. Dave at ARStechnica. And that's it, son. Macs are not used in the professional world for any real number-crunching or productivity. They're toys.

Lose your religion, kid. Women don't "put out" for shiny, overpriced computers. Get a car.

 

[lordstormdragon]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]Listen, I'm not pooh-poohing your rig, and I really couldn't care less.What I meant by "or your mediocrity prevents you from using decent equipment" is if you are a successful Professional you 'can' and 'will' get the correct equipment -- because your success affords you the opportunity to get it, and most importantly your time is more valuable than the equipment itself...i.e. you're losing money waiting and staring at a progress bar or for the task to complete.[/citation]

Apples are not the correct equipment. And any company worth their salt would have done a cost-benefit analysis and determined this. There are zero applications or situations where a Mac is preferable. Not in audio dev, not in CGI, not in heavy science. The poor GPU and OpenGL implementation along negates them from the CG industry. Clown shoes.

 

[DawnTreader]

HA HA!

 

[teodoreh]

This is a conspiracy of the PC industry, MACs don't have viruses .

To be precise, it's not Apple's fault for the virus itself, it's a Java bug that caused the problem. *But* it's Apple's fault for misleading customers by advertising (remember Mac vs PC guy) that Macs don't have viruses. Of course they do have - and if Macs become more popular, more viruses will appear in the future.

 

[goodguy713]

honestly its really isnt about pc or mac .. its a freaking operating system.. lol you can run windows on any newish mac .. seriously its really kinda silly i mean you get a logo on it.. see the only advantage apple has over the windows 7 standalones is that they have fixed system componets and everything is pretty much locked up .. if i could trun my computer into a hackintosh i would but .. realistically i dont think it would play nice with my hardware..
and as for viruses .. on a mac theres a bunch of different ones but you have to be pretty ignorant in order to get one .. or intentionally trying to get infected .. as for this trojan or worm or what ever you want to call it .. im sure apple will release an update conserning this bug .. and or virus definition update .. i have a mac laptop and a kick ass gaming pc .. so i mean how ever i do have anti virus software for my mac installed .. to think something is impossible only gives one incentive to make it possible .. lol and theres a microsoft word doc.. that is a virus .. my dumb ass bro downloaded it from yahoo junk mail... honestly .. thats the only time any of our stuff has been affected and we have around 8 macs..

 

[DaveUK]

Congratulations Apple, the whole internet is laughing at you.

 

[enforcer22]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]You've got to be kidding -- right?! Compared to the 100's of millions of PC infected with any and or all of the above, Mac's are pretty secure or as secure as any UNIX system with OEM added protection.Further, you're a moron if you you don't use a good commercial AV on any computer; you're just asking for it.I have a couple Mac's, a lot more PC's, and a room filled with servers running mostly RHEL. If I were a fool then they all could get infected. Mac's have considerably less problems primary for (2) reasons: 1. More viruses (etc) are written to exploit PC's, 2. UNIX is a tad tougher to 'infect'. Viruses since the 90's have been around for both the Mac's and obviously the PC's. The day there's a 'perfect PC' around I'll be long dead and buried.[/citation]

You wouldnt be able to say that if there were even hundreds of millions of mac in existance let alone used by anyone important enough to care about. Its all a numbers game none of the rest of what you said is even relavent.

 

[metalmechanic]

Take that mac fanboys! "My Macintosh cant even get a virus if it wanted to" Said in very smug apple fan voice!

 

[halcyon]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]Hey I can keep this up all night. Dude, you get what you pay for. One of my SQL servers costs more than a car. I have no cheap computers and I appreciate quality. Again, I have plenty of PCs -> http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2320509 What do you 'do' with your PC?Maybe you might want to look at a Mac and know something (anything) about it first:[/citation]

I'm fortunate enough to have both a Mac Pro and a Wintel gaming rig. They're for completely different things. TBH, I'd not want to use Mac Pro for gaming any more than I'd want to use my gaming rig for virtualization. I, am, however open-minded enough to realize one is not better than the other...they're just different with different purposes.

 

[cptnjarhead]

does not surprise me. apple has been off the radar for a long time.
now they are in the crosshairs. apple makes great products no argument there, but so many mac users believe that they are incapable of getting a virus/malware. they ignore updates and basically operate without caution.

 

[house70]

This article is funny; not because computers get infected (that's never funny), but because of Apple's arrogance about their so-called immunity.
Now that's funny.
Moral of the story? Never say 'never'...

 

[beardguy]

This made me laugh a bit Mac users just need a healthy dose of reality. ( I use mac and PC)

 

[icedewd]

If your Mac got a virus, you must be holding it wrong.