3 ms·

So, let's review the actual exploits listed here (since, the author says, it isn't just FUD): ASLR & MacDefender... Hmm... hardly a damning criticism.

mcritz 15y ago
I was thinking the same thing. A subheading in the article is “Malware for OS X Increasing.” He does a poor job substantiating that claim, IMHO. I don't want to point fingers at Chicken Little, because I agree with the thesis; Apple needs to be more serious about OS X security.
- ralfd 15y ago
  Well in the years prior there were zero and now there is one. This is an increase of infinity percentage! Okay, beside the snark it is true, Apple should maintain security bugs better and "File Quarantine" looks to me rather rudimentary: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3662 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3662 But as long as the "Trojan Botnets" he mentions are simple PHP scripts which are distributed years ago by pirating Photoshop and are simply killed by deleting the file and a reboot I personally stay feeling pretty secure. http://blog.notahat.com/posts/28 http://blog.notahat.com/posts/28
scottw 15y ago
Agreed; follow the link the author offers near the top of the article to Secunia. Of a few common OSes I looked at (Red Hat Enterprise 5, Windows XP Pro, Windows 7, OS X), OS X had the fewest advisories for 2009, 2010, and 2011; most vulnerabilities seemed to be of a more benign nature than other OSes. Perfect? Probably not, but it's still the OS I'm going to recommend to my mom.
- vogonj 15y ago
  Apple has fewer advisories because it's their standard operating procedure to sit on security bugs for several months and then patch them all at once, even if their contemporaries are patching them as they appear. If you look at the numbers for OS X as opposed to Windows XP, OS X has 1,544 vulnerabilities in 153 advisories (~10.1 vulns/advisory) and Windows has 472 vulnerabilities in 358 advisories (~1.31 vulns/advisory). Unless you have a good reason to believe that bugs in Windows are nearly eight times "more unique" than bugs in OS X, please don't compare advisories.

mcritz 15y ago

I was thinking the same thing. A subheading in the article is “Malware for OS X Increasing.” He does a poor job substantiating that claim, IMHO. I don't want to point fingers at Chicken Little, because I agree with the thesis; Apple needs to be more serious about OS X security.

ralfd 15y ago
Well in the years prior there were zero and now there is one. This is an increase of infinity percentage! Okay, beside the snark it is true, Apple should maintain security bugs better and "File Quarantine" looks to me rather rudimentary: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3662 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3662 But as long as the "Trojan Botnets" he mentions are simple PHP scripts which are distributed years ago by pirating Photoshop and are simply killed by deleting the file and a reboot I personally stay feeling pretty secure. http://blog.notahat.com/posts/28 http://blog.notahat.com/posts/28

scottw 15y ago

Agreed; follow the link the author offers near the top of the article to Secunia. Of a few common OSes I looked at (Red Hat Enterprise 5, Windows XP Pro, Windows 7, OS X), OS X had the fewest advisories for 2009, 2010, and 2011; most vulnerabilities seemed to be of a more benign nature than other OSes. Perfect? Probably not, but it's still the OS I'm going to recommend to my mom.

vogonj 15y ago
Apple has fewer advisories because it's their standard operating procedure to sit on security bugs for several months and then patch them all at once, even if their contemporaries are patching them as they appear. If you look at the numbers for OS X as opposed to Windows XP, OS X has 1,544 vulnerabilities in 153 advisories (~10.1 vulns/advisory) and Windows has 472 vulnerabilities in 358 advisories (~1.31 vulns/advisory). Unless you have a good reason to believe that bugs in Windows are nearly eight times "more unique" than bugs in OS X, please don't compare advisories.