Safari hacked

[Gaddabout]

It's a fact that Macs are much safer to use--they are not 100% hack-proof, but they are a lot more safe than PCs. However, PCs are much more versatile. I am not anti-PC, I'm pro-PC and pro-Mac. Each are good for what they excel at.

There are two ways I've heard of the new Mac OS being hacked, and both ways involve the owner of the Mac being completely at fault.

1) Turn your Mac into an Apache server. This basically gives you all the advantages -- and security problems -- as any other Apache server. If you don't know your way around specific Apache security issues, you should never do this. I would advise not doing this anyway, but at least know the risks before pushing buttons.

2) Download warez. Basically, you download illegal software, you tend to do business with pirates. I know there was a confirmed case of a man downloading a bootlegged copy of Microsoft Office and he ended up completely hacked.

I've yet to hear of someone simply breaking through an out-of-the-box Mac as a matter of security loopholes in the OS. I'm sure they're there, but Norton hasn't warned me of any needed fixes or patches (and they've been guilty of warning Mac users at every whisper of a rumor, almost always false).

 

[Covert Rain]

See, I AM in the film business--I just edited a damn movie! What's worse: Mac people that are holier-than-thou (which I am not) or PC people that think they are superior to Mac users, regardless of their attitudes? Several people on this thread fall into that category.

Macs are good for certain things, PCs for others. People that say they are just as good at anything don't know jack about what they are talking about.

So is my older brother but he can't tell me anything about Macs unless your asking him to ACT like he knows anything about either.

 

[Russ Smith]

Come on. You don't think anybody attempted to hack Safari on the Mac? You don't honestly believe that, do you? Even if that were true, wouldn't that prove that Macs are more stable if even hackers wouldn't bother to TRY?

Why waste your time hacking a system that has such a small user base?

hackers do what they do for a reason, to be a pain in the neck to computer users. There's very little incentive to do that on a Mac when the overwhelming majority of people don't use a Mac.

I'm sure people do try to hack Macs, but most of them are Apple employees or developers who are doing it as security experts, not hackers.

 

[Gaddabout]

Why waste your time hacking a system that has such a small user base?

I've never personally met a hacker. Or maybe I have and I just didn't know it. But based on what I've read about hacker motivations, it seems to be driven by two things: Financial gain and personal challenge.

I can't imagine a hacker thinking in business terms like "user base." If anything, Macs are probably way up there in terms of things hackers hate because Apple is way more proprietary than any other computer manufacturer.

Besides all this, the answer is fairly simple: It's easier to hack a Win machine than a Mac because Windows uses a registry. Both machines are open to holes when the user is careless in their surfing and comes across a malicious website.

http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-6178131.html

 

[Russ Smith]

I've never personally met a hacker. Or maybe I have and I just didn't know it. But based on what I've read about hacker motivations, it seems to be driven by two things: Financial gain and personal challenge.

I can't imagine a hacker thinking in business terms like "user base." If anything, Macs are probably way up there in terms of things hackers hate because Apple is way more proprietary than any other computer manufacturer.

Besides all this, the answer is fairly simple: It's easier to hack a Win machine than a Mac because Windows uses a registry. Both machines are open to holes when the user is careless in their surfing and comes across a malicious website.

http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-6178131.html

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/56017.html


Popularity, it turns out, is perhaps the most important security factor in today's changing hacker world.

"The guys at Microsoft are largely victims of their own success -- they must find it incredibly frustrating," Graham Cluley, a security technology consultant for Sophos , told MacNewsWorld. "Because they've managed to sell so many copies of Windows around the world, that's what the hackers target. Hackers don't feel they have to go through the effort of writing Mac-specific exploits. "

Hackers, Inc.
Only a few years ago, hackers were playing around for fun and glory, but today it's all about economics.

"What we're seeing right now is malware for profit," David Perry, director of global education for Trend Micro (Nasdaq: TMIC) , told MacNewsWorld. "It's written by a different group of people -- professional programmers in the employ of organized crime. We're talking about criminals today who are only going to attack where they are getting responses."

Perry also noted that new vulnerabilities for Vista might not show up for months, maybe longer, often because these early vulnerabilities are being bought and sold on the black market. Perry said he is aware of a recent sale that reportedly went down for US$50,000.

If popularity illuminates vulnerabilities or actual exploits used in the real world, where does that leave Vista? Right now, like OS X, Vista is a niche operating system because so few people are using it compared to XP.

---------------------------

There's another story on the same site about a guy who won 10K by hacking a Macbook at a contest. It took 2 days to get it hacked, but that's because the first day there was "so little interest" in the contest, that a sponsor added a 10K bonus prize(the original prize was a Macbook) and that got a few more people trying. As you said, the guy who hacked it did so because they went to a "malicious site".

 

[Chaplin]

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/56017.html


Popularity, it turns out, is perhaps the most important security factor in today's changing hacker world.

"The guys at Microsoft are largely victims of their own success -- they must find it incredibly frustrating," Graham Cluley, a security technology consultant for Sophos , told MacNewsWorld. "Because they've managed to sell so many copies of Windows around the world, that's what the hackers target. Hackers don't feel they have to go through the effort of writing Mac-specific exploits. "

Hackers, Inc.
Only a few years ago, hackers were playing around for fun and glory, but today it's all about economics.

"What we're seeing right now is malware for profit," David Perry, director of global education for Trend Micro (Nasdaq: TMIC) , told MacNewsWorld. "It's written by a different group of people -- professional programmers in the employ of organized crime. We're talking about criminals today who are only going to attack where they are getting responses."

Perry also noted that new vulnerabilities for Vista might not show up for months, maybe longer, often because these early vulnerabilities are being bought and sold on the black market. Perry said he is aware of a recent sale that reportedly went down for US$50,000.

If popularity illuminates vulnerabilities or actual exploits used in the real world, where does that leave Vista? Right now, like OS X, Vista is a niche operating system because so few people are using it compared to XP.

---------------------------

There's another story on the same site about a guy who won 10K by hacking a Macbook at a contest. It took 2 days to get it hacked, but that's because the first day there was "so little interest" in the contest, that a sponsor added a 10K bonus prize(the original prize was a Macbook) and that got a few more people trying. As you said, the guy who hacked it did so because they went to a "malicious site".

But you don't know whether it's about the fact that there are so few Macs, or the fact that people don't hack Macs because they are so difficult to do. Probably both, but it appears you don't want to consider that, or am I missing that...?

 

[Russ Smith]

But you don't know whether it's about the fact that there are so few Macs, or the fact that people don't hack Macs because they are so difficult to do. Probably both, but it appears you don't want to consider that, or am I missing that...?

No I'm saying it says right in there that hackers target the machines that will bring the most results, and that means XP right now because ~80% of the people using computers use them.

Macs may in fact be harder to hack, I don't know, I'm not a hacker, but the reason we hear so much more about Microsoft getting hacked is because so many more people try to do it. See my other example one of Apple's promoters at that conference had to pony up extra cash to get more people to even TRY to hack the Mac Book. If you read the official press release from Apple after it happened they said they had to "loosen the contest standards" before someone was able to hack them. What they don't say is that the reason it took 2 days was that virtually nobody entered the first day when the only prize was a free Macbook, only after someone else ponied up 10K, did people even bother to try and hack it.

I'm not a hacker I'm sure the Mac probably is tougher but it's not nearly as secure as Apple claims it is in advertising. It would be like Canada bragging that it's more secure from terrorism than the US because of security policies, when it's actually because terrorists are more interested in attacking us than attacking Canada.

Edit: I guess I forgot to post that article, I read an article about a guy who won 10K plus a Macbook for hacking the Macbook at a consumer show. He was able to do it after they visited a malicious site, Apple said that the original rules prevented that but they had to loosen up the rules because nobody could hack them. In reality almost nobody was trying until someone put up the 10K, even MacWorld admits that.

 

[CardFan67]

Everything Mac markets has been hacked. It is not reported in large scale primarily because no one cares. It is not mass targeted because it is not used by the majority of computer users... Search hacked Macs, Apple Hacked or any other string and you will find news notes regarding how easy OSX is to hack, Apple TV, and now Safari.

No one focuses on hacking any of these products because there are so few users and no one cares...