Mac trojan disables OS X malware protection

[7075-T7]

don't the makers of these things have anything better to do?

[Thomas]

don't the makers of these things have anything better to do?

It's a very lucrative industry. That, and as long as there Mac owners who have been brainwashed by Apple to think their computers are impervious to anything so they don't buy anti-virus software, they'll keep making viruses/etc for Macs.

[PBratton]

Wait a minute... I thought Mac's were virus proof.

I thought that only us lowly PC abusers were the ones that got hit with this stuff.

Jobs dies, they didn't make projected earnings this quarter, My GOD, the whole company is going into the dumpster!

[Thomas]

Wait a minute... I thought Mac's were virus proof.

I thought that only us lowly PC abusers were the ones that got hit with this stuff.

Jobs dies, they didn't make projected earnings this quarter, My GOD, the whole company is going into the dumpster!

They didn't make projected earnings? I haven't read that in the news. I did read that 4 million iPhone 4Ss were sold. Some recession we're in...

Unless they were all bought to do this:
Link to 1 minute and 30 seconds into the video shown in its entirety below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B489u_1ZBIA#t=1m33s

Whole video:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=B489u_1ZBIA[/youtube]

[apostate]

Equo ne credite, Teucri.

[PBratton]

Wait a minute... I thought Mac's were virus proof.

Trojans aren't viruses - they don't infect files and try to spread, they typically just open a back-door in the machine through which it can be controlled remotely. It's perhaps a subtle difference, considering that both are considered "malware", but it's an important distinction.

Windows, Macs, Linux - all are vulnerable to programs which have been "trojaned" - software which masquerades as a legitimate program but contains a back-door. That's one reason you'll often see MD5 hashes (basically a fingerprint) published on Linux websites, so that one can check whether the hashes match - if they don't, someone has modified the package.

As for viruses, they do exist for Mac and Linux as well - but in far lesser numbers, and they tend not to be very successful or long-lived due to the more robust architectures (partitioning, permissions, etc) of those operating systems.

It was all in jest Andy.

[Thomas]

It was all in jest Andy.

Even though, his response was enlightening.