On Sep 19, 2005, at 8:57 AM, Howard Katz wrote:
FYI:
Firefox and Mac security sanctuaries 'under attack'
http://forms.theregister.co.uk/register/register
A free access URL:
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/19/symantec_threat_report/>
Symantec attacks sacred cows
By John Leyden
Published Monday 19th September 2005 12:19
Symantec is getting desperate to sell their snake oil.
Symantec has attacked the perceived security advantages of Firefox and
Apple Macs by drawing unfavourable comparisons with Microsoft's
software and describing Mac fans as living in a "false paradise".
According to the latest edition of Symantec's Internet Security Threat
Report, 25 vulnerabilities were disclosed for Mozilla browsers and 13
for Microsoft Internet Explorer in the first half of 2005.
Graham Pinkney, head of threat intelligence EMEA at Symantec, said
that switching from IE to Firefox as a way of minimising security
risks was no longer valid advice. "Cross-site scripting attacks have
been used to attack more vulnerabilities in Mozilla browsers over the
last six months than IE," Pinkney told an IDC security conference last
week ahead of the publication of Symantec's threat report today. John
Cheney, chief executive of email filtering firm BlackSpider, replied
that the release of Firefox had "helped Microsoft to raise its game"
in terms of browser security.
And he can not point to a SINGLE example where these attacks have
affected a Mac, because there are none. Also note 25 vulnerabilities
were *disclosed* for Firefox.
Who knows how many there were that weren't disclosed for MS IE?
Firefox's buglist is out there for the world to peruse. They can't
hide anything.
Firefox has also had three updates in that timeframe, specifically
fixing those vulnerabilities.
Another thing that they don't mention, because it might take some of
the 'oooohhhh scaaaarrrrry' out of their pronouncements is that
nearly ALL, if not all of those Mac OSX vulnerabilities are LOCAL
exploits, mostly means by which local users can escalate their
privileges. 99% of us don't need to worry about that because WE are
the only local users.
As well as making comments that will doubtless irk Firefox fans,
Symantec has renewed its assault of the perceived security advantages
of Apple Macs. "Mac users may be operating under a false sense of
security as a noteworthy number of vulnerabilities and attacks were
detected against Apple Mac's operating system, OS X," Symantec said,
reflecting comments in the previous edition of its threat report that
OS X was an emerging target for attack.
Noteworthy number of vulnerabilities, perhaps, there have been
several security updates; they still cannot point to a SINGLE ATTACK
on a Mac. (and trust me they would if they could...they really WANT
to stampede the herd.)
Blah blah blah pleeeeeeesse buy our products pleeeeeeese blah blah blah.
"While the number of vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities in OS X has
remained relatively constant during the last two reporting periods [12
months], Symantec predicts this could change in the future. Symantec's
analysis on a rootkit (OSX/Weapox) reveals it is designed to take
advantage of OS X. This particular trojan demonstrates that as OS X
increases in popularity, so too will the scrutiny it receives from
potential attackers."
You need root privileges to install a rootkit. It is not an attack,
it's what you use AFTER a successful attack.
Moreover, WeaponX was posted in October of 2004. This has been around
a while.
And the author of WeaponX <http://neil.slampt.net/> has written for
Symantec.
<sniff sniff> Why does it smell like day-old mackerel in here?
Out of the box, Mac OS X is one of the most secure OSes on the market
today.
By default NOTHING is open, it has an effective firewall (moreso in
10.4, where you can pretty much make your mac invisible on the net.
(in Sharing > Firewall > Advanced check Block UDP traffic and Stealth
Mode. This may cause some problems in corporate environments so ask
your friendly (or rude and arrogant as the case may be) IT person
about this).
I'm not burying my head in the sand, I'm not pretending that OS X is
invulnerable, it's not.
What I am pissed off at are people who cry wolf; folks who want to
scare us into submission or into buying their worthless products, and
Symantec has been pounding the drum for this for a while.
Must need to meet their quarterlies.
--
Bruce Johnson
This is the sig who says 'Ni!'
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