Finally, the fallacious claim that Apple’s flagship product, the Mac, cannot get viruses or malware had the nails on its coffin sealed shut. This month, it was revealed that there were 600,000 Macs infected with the “flashback Trojan.” The virus was a malicious piece of code that turns the user’s computer into a “zombie” computer or botnet that can be controlled by a remote computer.
The Trojan used a java update to disguise itself and gain access to the computer and install itself. The message appeared as a simple Java update asking the user for permission to install. The update is not legitimate and is intended solely to fool users into accepting the installation on their computers.
A botnet is a compromised computer that can be controlled from a remote location and used for anything the controller of the botnet wants. The distributed denial of service attack, also known as a DDoS, used against the MasterCard, Visa and other websites in 2011 was mainly the result of members of anonymous using botnets to overload the servers of those websites.
More viruses for Macs could be on the horizon. | afagen/Flickr.com
Botnets pose a serious danger because a computer can be hijacked for any purpose without the user’s knowledge. They can also be used to infect other computers through the use of email or other messaging services such as Skype.
Microsoft has always been associated with viruses and hacked computers. With a dominant share of the PC market for the better part of almost two decades, it’s no wonder that Microsoft’s software has been hacked and exploited to the extent that it has. Internet Explorer was quite possibly the worst of them all.
For years, Microsoft has been criticized for the lack of security on their systems. Internet Explorer is synonymous with spyware, malware, viruses etc. and it’s no wonder users have gone to Google’s Chrome or Mozilla’s Firefox in droves. The issue hasn’t been that Windows computers are less safe because they are less secure; rather Windows computers are victim to their own success.
Hacking computers or exploiting a user’s computer with malicious code is not something that is easily done and actually takes a fair amount of work to accomplish. For this reason, hackers want to minimize the amount of work done and therefore they attack computer systems that are used by the majority of people.
Apple enthusiasts have bragged for years about the security of Mac yet failed to mention the main reason as to why Macs are so safe in the first place. In short, no one wanted to waste time on an operating system with such a small market share.
This is beginning to change as Macs have become the industry standard for media production and as others move to the Mac system. What was once considered a lot of work for minimal reward from the hacker’s perspective is now becoming an alluring target.
Apple stands to overtake the PC market by mid 2012 and become the dominant PC manufacturer. This analysis included iPads but it still belies the point, the more dominant Apple becomes, the more of a target it becomes for hackers.
Computers are not the only susceptible devices to viruses; phones have become increasingly susceptible to viruses and malware. Often these come in the form of phony apps that users install that contain the ability to spy on users or even take control of their phones.
Although there are a lot of online threats, there are some simple common sense things that people can do to prevent their computers from being infected or hacked. A key tip is to install a good anti-virus and not all are expensive. AVG offers great protection and it is free.
Other key tips are to remain vigilant and ensure that all software stays up to date so that any known vulnerabilities are patched. These few tips can decrease the risk of having a computer become infected but they’re not bulletproof.
Apple is slowly starting to dominate the electronics market through ubiquitous products such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook but with this dominant role in the global PC market comes risk. That is something 600,000 Mac users have recently discovered.
Apple needs to have a vigilant and vigorous security department ready to deal with the slew of threats that will surely be coming their way. Otherwise, they may suffer the same fate as Microsoft and endure years of being synonymous with a lack of security and being prone to malicious attacks.
Alex Caraballo can be reached at acaraballo21@gmail.com.
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While Mac malware has existed for some time, a trojan which requires the user to input an administrator password is hardly on par with the sort of viruses many Windows computers can be infected with simply by surfing through a malicious website.
I think you need to research operating systems a bit more. The Mac OS has always been vulnerable to virii and malware. Every OS ever made has ALWAYS been vulnerable. And they are not being attacked only because they are getting more popular. Yes, Windows has a higher market so it is easier to hit that OS, but Macs are built using the UNIX framework that, until recently, did not allow outside programs to execute without user permission. Now that Apple is going the way of Windows (this started when they began using Intel processors instead of IBM) and making things easier for the unwashed masses, the OS is going to become more vulnerable. And like all computers regardless of OS they are still vulnerable to browser attacks, various injection type attacks, man-in-the-middle, etc. There are many known Mac virii in the wild, Windows has the most but Mac is second. UNIX, BSD and GNU/Linux are the only ones that have no known wild virii. There have been reports in the past that there were about six Linux virii but I have never heard of one that ever caused problems. Again the UNIX based OSs will always be the best for fending off malware and viruses. The Mac fanboy/girls should never have said “We can’t get malware and virues” because that is a silly statement.