All I can say as a Mac user is this... I am very sorry that I was bragging all this time that there wasn't any dangerous viruses for Mac. I stand corrected, and am not going to be mouthing off about this anymore.

In other news. WOW! This virus actually looks pretty serious. Here is an excerpt that I find to be disturbing considering I am a mac user.

"The weak anti-virus software that Apple bundles into OS X 10.7 Lion doesn't cut it, and neither will the half-hearted Gatekeeper feature in the upcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion."

Well dang... Guess I better be a little more careful.


http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/virus-hits-apple-mac-computers-how-to-protect-against-malware-2012-04-09

Probably a good idea. If the people who spread these viruses now see the Mac as a potential target, their numbers will only start to increase.

Unfortunately judging from the comments of that article, some people aren't taking it seriously enough.

The Net... Gatekeeper?

I totally agree. This is one of the biggest viruses that mac has experienced and a lot of the mac users are not taking it seriously because nothing too serious like this has happened. Well, the fortune they spent to get their computer will be wasted and I will be laughing while my computer is still running. Hopefully...





Unless this is a quote from Ghostbusters, then I am not following.

Isn't this like, incredibly old news?

The worst part is that Apple has left Leopard and Tiger users in the dust, as their systems never got patched.


Finally: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx

In the end, it's been well-known in the security world that Apple is not up to snuff security-wise. To this day they remain having one of the worst patching systems out there and are publicly criticized on a regular basis in the security world (most recently by Kaspersky's CEO)

The Article is less than a month old, so I wouldn't say it is ancient news.

I am agreeing with you though, and now that a bigger virus is out that can actually harm me since I am a leopard user I am taking extra precautions to where I am going.

Now that I see how bad Apple's security is pretty bad, I am not really happy with how Apple is treating their customers. They need to get it together now that there is actually a threat to their security. It was only a matter of time, and it seems like no one really cares.

That's pretty much the definition of ancient news in the security world. It's also been brought up in 4 or so different threads on this forum. Basically, if you're just finding out about a security threat a month old, it's already too late for you.

I'm pretty certain MacDefender was bigger than this, not to mention there were various worms, viruses, and trojans for OS X before this, quite a lot this year that all had some decent market penetration. Heck, there was a Conficker variant for Mac OS X. I'd say this was maybe #3 or #4 in the list of bad malware for OS X in recent times, just one that got decent publicity. It is interesting in some respects, though, like how it spawned a dozen or so variants (more than MacDefender did) and how older systems still have no defense against it through Apple.

And to do something that may seem quibbling to you: this isn't a virus, but a trojan. The distinction is important because unlike viruses, trojans don't infect other computers/files.

It's hard to believe that people actually believe that macs are virus proof. It really does boggle the mind a bit.

If Apple were to change some policies and get on the ball with security and patching, they'd actually probably have a pretty dang secure platform highly resistant to viruses, or at least the impact any virus could do. OS X is built on Darwin which is based on BSD in part, which is well-known for its security. The difference is they altered some stuff and completely lost others in the name of user friendliness.