Mac Attack!

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/03/james-bond-style-malware-attacks-come-to-the-mac.ars


It turns out that Mac OSX, Apple's operating system, is turning out to have more security vulnerabilities than previously thought. Once touted as the ultra-secure alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating system, more and more security issues are beginning to come out. What specific problems are being found? Read on...


The OSX problems that have been found rely on vulnerabilities found in Microsoft Office and the Java framework. The backdoor trojans, which were used to target pro-Tibetan organizations, install unbeknownst to the user and send information about the user's machine to the attacker's server. The attacker is then able to use this information to remotely issue Unix commands that affect the attacker's machine (Mac is Unix-based, after all). These attacks signify an increased shift from hackers targeting nearly only Windows machines to hackers targeting both Windows and Mac machines. 


These sorts of vulnerabilities certainly could have major ramifications. The article mentions that companies as large as Google have been switching many of their computers from Windows machines to Mac machines for the specific purpose of avoiding these sorts of security issues, which Macs were previously thought to not be subject to. Again, this illustrates the trend of writers of malicious software putting more emphasis on Mac OSX. Ironic, isn't it?