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It's not a virus. It's malware. Users install it, and it sends them to porn sites. If you run "sudo rm -rld /*" on a Mac, it may not run so well either. Of co

by wisty 15y ago

It's not a virus. It's malware. Users install it, and it sends them to porn sites. If you run "sudo rm -rld /*" on a Mac, it may not run so well either. Of course, it may be a sign that more sophisticated malware (i.e. real viruses, and other stuff that actually exploits the Mac's vulnerabilities) will be on the way.

daeken 15y ago
> Of course, it may be a sign that more sophisticated malware (i.e. real viruses, and other stuff that actually exploits the Mac's vulnerabilities) will be on the way. Once an OS has the attention of malware writers (even user-installed malware like this), real malware won't be far behind. Especially when you consider how much easier exploitation is on OS X than, say, Windows or Linux. It's 2011, but OS X still doesn't have useful ASLR -- supposed to be coming in 10.7, but it was also supposed to come in 10.6, so we'll see how that goes.
- danssig 15y ago
  > when you consider how much easier exploitation is on OS X than, say, Windows or Linux. [citation needed] It wasn't until Windows 7 that windows finally got a reasonable security approach. I don't know what install bases look like these days but most PCs I interact with are still on XP which is obviously not harder to exploit that OS X.
  - blub 15y ago
    That is not correct, most of the security improvements were already implemented in Vista, which was released in 2007.
    - adamc 15y ago
      Yes, but Microsoft has acknowledged that there were weaknesses in its 32-bit ASLR implementation for Vista; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomizat...
      - sid0 15y ago
        32-bit ASLR is going to be weak by definition. It's unavoidable.
rmc 15y ago
It's not a virus. It's malware. Users install it, and it sends them to porn sites. To you and to fellow readers of this site. However to the average Joe, there is no difference between the terms "virus", "malware" and "my computer is now doing things that I don't like that I didn't want it to do and it's interfering with me using my computer and I can't stop it"

by wisty 15y ago

daeken 15y ago

> Of course, it may be a sign that more sophisticated malware (i.e. real viruses, and other stuff that actually exploits the Mac's vulnerabilities) will be on the way. Once an OS has the attention of malware writers (even user-installed malware like this), real malware won't be far behind. Especially when you consider how much easier exploitation is on OS X than, say, Windows or Linux. It's 2011, but OS X still doesn't have useful ASLR -- supposed to be coming in 10.7, but it was also supposed to come in 10.6, so we'll see how that goes.

danssig 15y ago
> when you consider how much easier exploitation is on OS X than, say, Windows or Linux. [citation needed] It wasn't until Windows 7 that windows finally got a reasonable security approach. I don't know what install bases look like these days but most PCs I interact with are still on XP which is obviously not harder to exploit that OS X.
- blub 15y ago
  That is not correct, most of the security improvements were already implemented in Vista, which was released in 2007.
  - adamc 15y ago
    Yes, but Microsoft has acknowledged that there were weaknesses in its 32-bit ASLR implementation for Vista; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomizat...
    - sid0 15y ago
      32-bit ASLR is going to be weak by definition. It's unavoidable.

rmc 15y ago

It's not a virus. It's malware. Users install it, and it sends them to porn sites. To you and to fellow readers of this site. However to the average Joe, there is no difference between the terms "virus", "malware" and "my computer is now doing things that I don't like that I didn't want it to do and it's interfering with me using my computer and I can't stop it"