Spyware and Virus Programs?

Thanks, you guys make me feel so much better. This is one reason I
bought a Mac, but I was afraid in the several years since purchasing
it, some new viruses and spyware may have been invented for it.

Cori
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

In article ,
wrote:

> Before the latest system upgrade to my Power Mac G4 I would like to run
> programs to rid the computer of any spyware and viruses it may have
> picked up. What programs are best recommended and where can they be
> obtained? Thanks.

There are no known viruses or spyware for Mac OS X.
--
D.F. Manno
dfm2a3l0t2.TakeThisOut@spymac.com
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't
change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. (Roger Ebert)
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

wrote:

> I was afraid in the several years since purchasing
> it, some new viruses and spyware may have been invented for it.
....unix is more than 30 years old now, one of the wisest decisions ever
made by Steve&Co to have this as a solid base for a safe system.

Nevertheless there ARE applications that call home to find out this or
that (which doesn't mean they are spyware explicitly but are acting
much alike...) and it's principally a good idea to disallow that if you
don't know what it's for. A really nice tool to make you sure nothing is
sent to places where you don't like it to be seen is LittleSnitch, some
kind of dynamic firewall application that controls network activity and
can be configured to ask you for permission each time it is recognizing
it.
Greetings Frank
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

tacit wrote:
> In article ,
> wrote:
>
>
>>Before the latest system upgrade to my Power Mac G4 I would like to run
>>programs to rid the computer of any spyware and viruses it may have
>>picked up. What programs are best recommended and where can they be
>>obtained? Thanks.
>
>
> You have a Mac.
>
> There are no viruses and no spyware which can affect or infect Mac OS X.
> None. Nada. Zip. Zero.
>

Widespread? No. Is there malware for OS X? Yes. They're currently
just trojans based on things like the iSync issue and minor exploits
based on the widgets frameworks. But the way most typical Mac and PC
users run as admin all the time, and don't keep their systems updated,
and install every stupid haxie under the sun it's just a matter of time
until there is a widespread exploit running loose.

Greg

--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.sys.mac.apps.]
On 2006-01-16, G.T. wrote:
> Widespread? No. Is there malware for OS X? Yes. They're currently
> just trojans based on things like the iSync issue and minor exploits
> based on the widgets frameworks.

For sure there are exploitable flaws in osx. They've been demonstrated
and described, and eventually these, or some new flaws, will start to be
used by evil-doers. I agree with you that mac users shouldn't get lazy
about security, though I doubt viruses in the strict sense will ever be
a serious problem. Any os, certainly including linux and osx, can be
hit by trojans or buffer-flow exploits; Windows is uniquely prone to
virus malware because it's a wildly over-complicated and over-engineered
operating system.

But are you claiming that there are already cases in the wild in which
holes in osx have been exploited? That's news.
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In article ,
"G.T." wrote:

> You don't think there are any
> unpublished flaws out there? It's just a matter time.
>
> Greg

Will the shift to Intel make such more likely?
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

On 2006-01-16, D P Schreber wrote:
> Any os, certainly including linux and osx, can be hit by trojans or
> buffer-flow exploits

Of course that was supposed to be "buffer-overflow".
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Johan W. Elzenga wrote:
> clw wrote:
>
>
>>In article ,
>> "G.T." wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You don't think there are any
>>>unpublished flaws out there? It's just a matter time.
>>>
>>>Greg
>>
>>Will the shift to Intel make such more likely?
>
>
> No, these things are based on the operating system, not the processor.
>

Processor architecture is important, though, on a couple of different
levels.

In the long run it will be less likely for exploits to be compiled
against PPC. As OS X and future versions' market share grows fewer
people will have OS X/PPC machines running. Any rootkits in the future
will be compiled for OS X/Intel so those still running legacy hardware
will be a little safer.

A typical example of this is the brute force SSH attack, the automated
versions will install an i386/Linux rootkit. If you're running Linux on
Alpha or SPARC then the rootkit won't run.

There are also processor specific features that provide stack-smashing
and executable space protection on some processor architectures. From
reading info on the OpenBSD mailing lists they suggest the Intel
processors to have the least amount of these features, but the OS has to
take advantage of them in the first place.

Greg
--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:
> G.T. wrote:
>
>
>>>>Will the shift to Intel make such more likely?
>>>
>>>
>>>No, these things are based on the operating system, not the processor.
>>>
>>
>>Processor architecture is important, though, on a couple of different
>>levels.
>>
>>In the long run it will be less likely for exploits to be compiled
>>against PPC. As OS X and future versions' market share grows fewer
>>people will have OS X/PPC machines running. Any rootkits in the future
>>will be compiled for OS X/Intel so those still running legacy hardware
>>will be a little safer.
>
>
> The question was not 'will staying with PPC make it less likely?", but
> 'will the shift to Intel make it more likely". The answer is: No.
>

I was responding to this part: "No, these things are based on the
operating system, not the processor". I wasn't responding to the
original poster. I gave examples where processor architecture does matter.

Greg

--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:
> G.T. wrote:
>
>
>>>The question was not 'will staying with PPC make it less likely?", but
>>>'will the shift to Intel make it more likely". The answer is: No.
>>>
>>
>>I was responding to this part: "No, these things are based on the
>>operating system, not the processor". I wasn't responding to the
>>original poster. I gave examples where processor architecture does matter.
>
>
> Right. Matter for something that wasn't the question. I understand.
>

What's your point? Someone posted misinformation and I corrected it.
Doesn't matter if that was the initial question or not. Why would you
want public misinformation to not be corrected?

Greg
--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:
> G.T. wrote:
>
>
>>>>I was responding to this part: "No, these things are based on the
>>>>operating system, not the processor". I wasn't responding to the
>>>>original poster. I gave examples where processor architecture does matter.
>>>
>>>
>>>Right. Matter for something that wasn't the question. I understand.
>>>
>>
>>What's your point? Someone posted misinformation and I corrected it.
>>Doesn't matter if that was the initial question or not. Why would you
>>want public misinformation to not be corrected?
>
>
> My point is that you read very poorly. That 'someone' was me, and the
> information was correct as far as it was the answer to a specific
> question. I never wrote that the processor NEVER matters, but it doesn't
> matter in this case, period.
>

It matters in this case. Another example specific to the issue since
the other ones weren't good enough for you: there are more hackers that
can write i386 shellcode than PPC shellcode. There will be more
expertise working on Intel Mac exploits.

From palante's PPC shellcode paper:

"Making an execve call wasn't too hard, but it's very hard on the
PPC to avoid all the null bytes in the opcodes. There are two very
important opcodes which which can have nulls in them. The first is
the sc opcode to make system calls. I've make the code self-modifying
to get around that problem. Hopefully this won't cause trouble with the
instruction cache. It works for me(TM) but YMMV."

There's plenty more documents online showing the difficulties of writing
exploits against PPC compared to i386.

Greg

--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons
 >> Stay informed about: Spyware and Virus Programs? 

In article ,
"G.T." wrote:

> I was responding to this part: "No, these things are based on the
> operating system, not the processor". I wasn't responding to the
> original poster. I gave examples where processor architecture does matter.

Going forward, it may possible to construct block overruns who's code
executes on either Mac OS X or Windows systems running Intel processors.
If so, that may have a significant impact.

--
Steven Fisher; sdfisher DeleteThis @spamcop.net
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Tom Harrington:
> Yeah, well, when you compare the constant flood of windows viruses
> against "it might happen one day" on Mac OS X, it's hard not to be a
> little smug.

Forsooth! And we can't help being amused that the author of the BBC
article went back to the Apple II to find an Apple virus.

He also said "Mac OS may not have the gaping holes that let viruses
spread, but worms, spyware and even keyloggers are out there."

Where are these things? I have a Windows laptop among my seven Macs,
and I'm on a first-name basis with Windows malware. But what are the
names of the worms that infect OS X? The spyware? What keystroke logger
might be at work on my system, and what is the bad guy doing with the
key strokes that he logs (I do a lot of on-line shopping, and haven't
suffered identity theft.)

What I'm really asking is why does this guy say that there is Mac
malware out there when he can't identify any? Where's the beef? Read
any article on Windows malware and it is named and described in
considerable detail.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
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