Re: Macs in Astronomy Updated; Canon 20D under Mac & Windows

From: Brian Tung (brian_at_isi.edu)
Date: 03/01/05 

Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 23:44:17 +0000 (UTC)

Chris L Peterson wrote:
> Last year, there was the Opener script, an OS X malware script that
> deletes some system files, opens the firewall, and installs a backdoor.
> I recall getting a security notice about it from Apple. I think it
> infected some machines in the wild, although never became a serious
> problem.
>
> There have also been several benign proof-of-concept viruses and trojans
> posted over the last couple of years that demonstrate ways of exploiting
> OS X, although as far as I know none have been made malicious (or the
> vulnerabilities, once identified, have been fixed).

Someone came to ISI some time ago to give a (poorly attended, more's
the pity) talk on the life cycle of exploits. Provocatively (but not
surprisingly), the vast majority of infections take place well after
the vulnerability is first discovered, well after the exploit has been
developed and deployed, well after even the fix for the vulnerability
has been assembled and made available. People simply do not take the
few seconds required to update their systems.

Infections can and do still take place even on perfectly updated systems,
but they would be drastically reduced if updating were done on a more
consistent basis.

Brian Tung <brian@isi.edu>
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