April 16th, 2009

Not even Apple can protect the dumbest users from themselves

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 12:07 pm

Categories: Apple, Security

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Malware, Apple Inc., Apple Mac OS X, Apple Mac OS, Desktops, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Cyberthreats, Operating Systems, Security

I firmly believe that Mac OS X goes further than Windows does to protect users from themselves, but not even Apple can protect against the most bone-headed of users who insist on shooting themselves squarely in the foot.

Security vendor Symantec has confirmed the presence of a Mac OS X botnet (or iBotnet). How have hackers managed to breach the defenses of fortress Mac and take control of the system? By hiding the malware inside dodgy copies of iWork 09 and Photoshop CS4, making these available via P2P and then letting folks who don’t feel like paying for software do all the hard work.

All pretty simple really.

But is this latest development news to anyone? It’s not to me. After all, you can be certain that a percentage of those folks making the shift from Windows to Mac did so because their own dumb actions (downloading warez, installing fake codecs, opening every email attachment …) caused their system to be overrun with malware. The problem wasn’t down to the OS, but the user driving the OS, and since that hasn’t changed, the users are vulnerable to the same tricks.

What I can’t figure out is whether there’s any advantage to having a Mac OS X botnet over a bog standard Windows one. Maybe it’s just cooler …

Seriously though, given that this malware is spread via polluted downloads, I don’t see it spreading that far. It’s certainly not reason to rush out and buy security software for your Mac.