Well maybe 3rd quarter 2013
13.7%
Posted on 12/18/2014 7:38:04 AM PST by Star Traveler
If Sony knows exactly how they broke in (hacked it) ... they are not going to make it public knowledge and announce the details to the media ... besides the fact that it is an on-going FBI investigation.
I, too, have been a Mac user from the beginning. Never had a single issue of of a virus intrusion.
Never had a need to defrag or have virus protection software installed either.
My new iPhone 6+ and MacBook Pro retina 16g memory (2011) work as they are supposed to, with ease, capability and simplicity — oh, and they’re also fast!
There is no anti-virus software for the iPhone and iPad. As for my iMac, no I don’t run anti-virus software, but have done so sporadically since back in the 1980s. It seemed like a total waste of time and resources to do so in the last decade.
I have used Macs for many years with no problems. Got a new iMac last January, and although I love it, it has stopped recognizing a couple of my passwords, namely gmail and iCloud. Can’t figure out why. Always happened overnight. I’d shut down in the evening, and next morning upon turning it back on, I had problems. I have no clue!
Yeah, because that is exactly what I recommend?
Nope. Those programs are more trouble than help far too often.
“Never get in between Apple cultist and their need to grab onto every flimsy thing to pretend like that companies stuff in infallible.”
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Like moths mindlessly drawn to the light, so the usual Apple haters are irresistibly attracted to threads having to do with Apple products. And once at the thread they feel irresistibly compelled to post comments attacking or insulting Apple users and/or Apple products.
They are helpless before this compulsion, so feel sorry for these poor, helpless creatures.
Oh good grief. They don't get infected because, at core, OS X Macs are industrial strength UNIX™, not pasted on security. There are no true computer viruses or worms for OS X although the malware writers have been trying for 12 years. There are seven known computer virus or worm candidates (self-duplicating, self-transmitting, self-installing, self-initianting/running programs) that have been put forward during that time and all failed for the same reason; they all failed for lack of a viable vector. The one that was considered the most possible to succeed took two computer engineers, two Mac OS X specialists and two Magazine pundits SIX HOURS merely to get it to copy itself over its chosen Bluetooth vector from one Mac to another. . . and then it refused to work.
Sorry folks but there are plenty of Mac viruses out there and Macs get hacked all the time. The days of Macs flying under the radar are long gone.
@ QuisCustodiet1776, You really don't know what you are talking about. There are NOT "plenty of Mac viruses out there." and Macs are not getting "hacked all the time." Yes, the Mac has been hacked, but it usually takes a vulnerability that took months to find and an exploit that took months to prepare, but only seconds to execute at one of the White Hat contests. The hackers at those contests go AFTER the Macs because it is the challenge.
You said to "Google Mac Virus 2014." I have done it quite regularly, because I keep on top of it. Frankly, there is noting there. The only thing you'll find are Trojans. The funniest one is the latest HOAX from Dr. Web out of Russia in which they claim 17,000 Macs infected with the backdoor "worm." But what they are trying to sell their anti-virus offering for personal Mac users. Two years ago they were the ones who came up with the amazing disappearing 680,000 Java based Mac botnet that kept shrinking. . . that they claimed to have found by setting up a "honey-pot" server to intercept the Macs calling home to the bonnet's control server. However, like this 17,000 member botnet, NO ONE HAS EVER FOUND AN INFECTED MAC IN THE WILD! Not one! NONE! In fact, users could check their Mac's UUIDs on Dr. Web's "honey-pot" to see if they were infected. . . I found two of my Macs listed as infected. But that was impossible, because they had NEVER had Java installed on them! One of them was a dedicated machine that had never been connected to the internet!
In fact, Dr. Web had Macs listed as infected that had UUID's for Macs that had yet to be manufactured!
To even get infected a user had to have downloaded an obscure Russian language game, then gone to an even more obscure Russian language character generator site for the game and installed characters for the game. . . yet the game itself had only been downloaded fewer than 20,000 times. Yet supposedly 680,000 Macs were infected, 95% in English speaking US, Canada, and the UK? It was a cross platform JAVA vulnerability, yet only 2% of the infections affected non-Macs? Give us a break, not possible. Add all that up, and nothing fit. No one was reporting any infections. They were reporting their UUIDs on the list, but not infected!
What Dr. Web had was a list of UUIDs known in the range that would be for Macs. . . and were trying to sell their Dr. Web anti-Virus for business. It was a Hoax. Within a week, the 680K infected had dropped to 270K then a few days later to 130K then under 80K, as more and more people reported no infections found, then it dropped off the media radar. . . never to be heard of again. They are doing a rinse and repeat of their hoax on a smaller scale this year. Essentially the Mac community is laughing at them.
from Proxy_User:Yes, but if a virus wants to install itself on a Mac, it has to ask the user to type in the administrative password. Many of them do, since they’re not skilled Unix system administrators.
That, by definition, is not a computer virus, proxy_user. What you are describing is a Trojan Horse program. A Trojan is a program that does something other than described, usually malicious. No computer that can load an application can be immune from a Trojan. Trojans use what is termed social engineering, manipulation of the user, trickery, to get installed on the computer.
There are 57 known Trojan Horse programs in 8 known families for the Mac. Each and every one of them will be recognized by Mac OS X which will warn the user before completing a download, installation, or allowing it to run for the first time. A user must be a complete moron to ignore all those warnings, plus be privy to the Administrator's Name and Password to do any of those things to infect the Mac, not just click an "OK" check box. Apple pushes out updates to their file definitions of the Trojans whenever there is a change or an addition required, usually within 24 hours.
By the way, the Java Trojan that Dr. Web claimed created that botnet? It was a trojan that had been identified by Apple and was included in the definitions almost a year before Dr. Web claimed to have discovered their infections.
If you check with the threat reports, you will find even the worst case Trojans for Macs list the number of infections reports as fewer than 50 machines affected.
That is why OS X Macs don't get infected, PhillyRed.
As to your totally ignorant claim that no one uses Mac "seriously beyond creatives and school kids," I suppose that's who is pictured in the photograph below at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Design and Landing Team using their own personal laptop computers?
Well, I don't think these school children and creatives . . . oops, ROCKET SCIENTISTS, would quite agree with you, PhillyRed.
As for your really trite "security-by-obscurity" canard, that has been shot down so many times I will just point out that 99% of Macs are sitting out there completely naked, with no 3rd party commercial anti-virus running at all. . . and many of them with no software firewalls. It is also well known that Mac users tend to spend money far more than PC users and actual studies have shown that Mac users have MORE disposable income. Don't you think that 100,000,000 fairly wealthy SITTING DUCKS would be really JUICY targets for all those crooks out there?
If they were so easily "plucked," WHY HAVEN'T THEY BEEN STRIPPED OF ALL THEIR FEATHERS????
Aren't UUIDs normally random? I didn't know Apple was using a generating system like that used for MAC (the other kind) addresses.
I figured he'd done something like this:
$ for x in {1..10};do uuidgen ;done
d660a675-41e1-4c31-984a-268890777c4d
f1b041e3-b99d-411b-b506-a2f289cf8cb4
e8ec7d6e-bf19-4c28-a52c-7dca620cd829
a15d3481-04cd-4def-8640-c14004f6c417
f66df738-59b7-4187-8d64-11966d401c11
67b1d1c9-8554-4da9-aa54-9c04df545742
94ef42df-0d5e-4a58-8a64-59a97474b19d
f5219190-19f9-4b59-8673-e51b375c203c
1d3533fd-1e4a-4e61-bcff-9e2335a27339
8153b8db-3f16-40a1-82c3-605e8b4601dc
and then reported the UUIDs as being infected.
Before I retired, I worked at a major bank. Every computer was completely locked down - you couldn’t even listen to a music CD. We had automated processes scanning all the computer on the network; if you weren’t locked down, then you got locked down!
Linux without a GUI is even more secure than Macs, especially if you don’t have any daemons running.
This particular thread was silly and was not posted by Swordmaker, whose threads you always attack.
Since the CrEvo threads seem to have disappeared, the only threads that produce such vitriol are Apple threads.
Nope. Those programs are more trouble than help far too often.Do you maintain antivirus software on your computer?
That was my reaction to them, too. So when Apple came out with an OS founded on an industrial-strength operating system - Unix - I was pleased to count on that rather than on a band-aid stuck on a toy OS, which is what DOS and Windows were in comparison. I knew that Unix was designed for multitasking and multiuser operation fro the ground up, so it was inherently more robust. My experience was that I, as a user not an administrator, was so sensitive to the vulnerability of Windows that I became easily phished. I was NOT amused.So I just made it a policy to run an up-to-date version of OS X. And to see if Apple could deliver the robustness I was looking for. I’ve been doing that since shortly after OS X came out, and my luck is holding pretty well so far. Just bought my third iMac - and altho it took an hour to read my Time Machine external disk, that was all it took, and I’m in business with a 5K - for $2500 a new computer, and about as nice a desktop monitor as money will buy. My daughter even loves the hand-me-down.
I like to think I deserve it, once every ten years or so! :-)
My understanding is there are some ranges the manufacturers are provided to use. . . That avoids the possibility of an accidental duplication. Plus one can determine device type from the UUID. I'm not any kind of an expert not his but I know you can ID the type of device from the UUID, but not much more. That's how Dr. Web was able to claim these were all Macs.
“Apple; Still keeping IT’s unemployed and angry. “
Well you dont know anything about IT if this is what you seriously think.
“I just want to be able to read an Apple thread without being told I am deluded sycophant that loves queers and hates conservatives.”
Hey, I would love to read tech threads without snobby cultist with a creepy love affair with Apple not have to demonstrate that they are not capable of thinking past the nonsense memes, stereotypes, outdated talking points, and general lack of tech knowledge about anything outside of Apple either.
Sadly Apple users on FR can barely chuck out a sentence without doing one of those things. Maybe you should have a talk with them to take it down a notch, and then you wont have people actually have the nerve to counter their BS.
If you want to do some “self-help” they have the Apple Discussion forums. Just pick the right area and ask the question ...
https://discussions.apple.com/welcome
If you want Apple Support, instead, then go to either one of these ...
Apple Support
http://www.apple.com/support/
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar
http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/
Yes, it can be, although LINUX was more susceptible to the BASH vulnerability than was OS X because Apple had that locked down for all users unless turned it on.
“...I would love to read tech threads without snobby cultist with a creepy love affair with Apple not have to demonstrate that they are not capable of thinking past the nonsense memes, stereotypes, outdated talking points, and general lack of tech knowledge about anything outside of Apple either.
Sadly Apple users on FR can barely chuck out a sentence without doing one of those things. Maybe you should have a talk with them to take it down a notch, and then you wont have people actually have the nerve to counter their BS.”
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Yep, just like moths mindlessly drawn to the light, so Apple haters are irresistibly attracted to threads having to do with Apple products. And once at the thread they feel irresistibly compelled to post comments attacking or insulting Apple users and/or Apple products.
They are helpless before this compulsion, so feel sorry for these poor, helpless and pathetic creatures.
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