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1. #IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE FOR MAC#
2. #IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE INSTALL#
3. #IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE SOFTWARE#
4. #IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE WINDOWS#

However, Microsoft took a long look at the threat and made a conscious effort to evolve their operating systems to counter it. A security model had previously existed but it wasn’t until XP, where objects were given Security IDs and allowed actions were enabled in a way similar to Unix, that a model existed that had the same value as that in Unix.

#IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE WINDOWS#

Ten years ago, when Windows gained a bad reputation for security, Microsoft responded by introducing its Trustworthy Computing Initiative. Likewise, you might exploit a vulnerability in a third party application, as happened recently when a backdoor Trojan embedded inside boobytrapped Word documents successfully ran on Macs.

You might run, for example, a piece of JavaScript that steals credentials, or a keylogger, without necessarily attacking the operating system. But is it in fact just tidier?įundamentally, there is no reason why Macs should not be targeted using malware in the same way that viruses, Trojans and worms are built to target Windows systems.

So, Mac OS “feels” like it should be more secure.

#IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE SOFTWARE#

The corollary of this is that it is easy to completely remove an installation.Īnyone who has installed software onto a Windows platform knows that the installed components can be placed in a wide variety of folders, the obscurity of which mean that if you were ever to attempt to unpick the installation manually you’d inevitably end up with some unwanted pieces of code on your machine.įor Windows, this has spawned a whole host of tools for the uninstall and clean-up process.

#IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE INSTALL#

When you install a program in Unix, you typically predict which folders the executables and data will reside. Unix has other simple features, such as storing executable code and data in separate folders. The concept of Read, Write and Execute for various executables and data, as implemented in Unix, is simple to understand and has stood Unix systems in good stead for many years. That was not always the case for Windows as it was originally based upon MS-DOS. If you began your career using Unix, as I did, one of the things you come to value is that Unix (and hence Mac OS) has always had a security model built into the operating system. Mac OS, the Apple Mac operating system, is based upon the Berkley Software Distribution (BSD) of Unix, surrounded by a nice graphical user interface. The attack has left a lingering question: how secure are Apple Macs?Īpple has traditionally marketed its systems as being more secure than those running Microsoft Windows, but how true is that?

#IS MAC OS X 10.7.5 SAFE FOR MAC#

"Flashback would now have infected 1% of Macs, making Flashback roughly as common for Mac as Conficker was for Windows" - April 6, 2012 Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, put it very well when he said that, proportionally, the Flashback Trojan was as widespread amongst Macs as the notorious Conficker worm had been amongst Windows-based PCs. The thing that surprised many of us was the scale of the botnet. JavaScript code was used to load a Java-applet which exploited a vulnerability ( since patched). Macs were becoming infected with Flashback malware after users were redirected to a rogue website from a compromised site.

Last week, there was a lot focus on the security of Apple Macs after the Russian security firm, Dr Web, revealed that they had found a botnet comprising over half a million infected Mac computers.