Hunh. Turns out it's some interaction between Quicktime and Java. So if you use MacOSX and Safari, or MacOSX and firefox, or Windows and IE, or Windows and Firefox, and you have Quicktime (read: iTunes) installed, you can get hit. If you disable Java (Not Javascript), you are not affected on either platform. Is this the premise of write once, run anywhere?
I see the old excuse of market size has been brought out again. While it might be a contributing factor, there's a few counterexamples. The "What?" post has already covered the MacOS 9/X one. I've actually seen Sevendust in the wild on an iMac running 8.6
Furthermore, SQL slammer had a target population of 100K, and the Witty worm had a target population of only 12K. Apple shipped 1.6M Macs in 07 Q1 alone. Were it purely a function of market share, why haven't there been 3-30 worms a month for MacOS X? Especially considering how fast, virulent, and devestating SQL Slammer and Witty were, despite having a market several orders of magnitude smaller than MacOS X.
http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/witty/
http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/sapphire/
Is MacOS X fully secure? Is Safari? Firefox? Linux? No. Of course not. To claim otherwise is folly. (Andy, you're frothing at the mouth. Remember, we're supposed to be good fanboys. No rabies) Should we simply declare the field level, and simply chalk up IE and ISS's woes to larger market share? Neither that, because it wrongly removes responsibility.
But does this really matter? Should we celebrate other systems' misfortune? No. Worms and other such things affect my systems and servers, even if they never touch or infect them; It adds more strain to the network, and can crowd out legitimate traffic. In this regard, no system is immune to the effects. Should we always strive for improving security? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Infighting and OS wars blind us to this fact, that it's everyone's problem.
Register
More details: Quicktime and Java
http://www.matasano.com/log/812/breaking-macbook-vuln-in-quicktime-affects-win32-apple-code/
Hunh. Turns out it's some interaction between Quicktime and Java. So if you use MacOSX and Safari, or MacOSX and firefox, or Windows and IE, or Windows and Firefox, and you have Quicktime (read: iTunes) installed, you can get hit. If you disable Java (Not Javascript), you are not affected on either platform. Is this the premise of write once, run anywhere?
I see the old excuse of market size has been brought out again. While it might be a contributing factor, there's a few counterexamples. The "What?" post has already covered the MacOS 9/X one. I've actually seen Sevendust in the wild on an iMac running 8.6
Furthermore, SQL slammer had a target population of 100K, and the Witty worm had a target population of only 12K. Apple shipped 1.6M Macs in 07 Q1 alone. Were it purely a function of market share, why haven't there been 3-30 worms a month for MacOS X? Especially considering how fast, virulent, and devestating SQL Slammer and Witty were, despite having a market several orders of magnitude smaller than MacOS X.
http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/witty/
http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/sapphire/
Is MacOS X fully secure? Is Safari? Firefox? Linux? No. Of course not. To claim otherwise is folly. (Andy, you're frothing at the mouth. Remember, we're supposed to be good fanboys. No rabies) Should we simply declare the field level, and simply chalk up IE and ISS's woes to larger market share? Neither that, because it wrongly removes responsibility.
But does this really matter? Should we celebrate other systems' misfortune? No. Worms and other such things affect my systems and servers, even if they never touch or infect them; It adds more strain to the network, and can crowd out legitimate traffic. In this regard, no system is immune to the effects. Should we always strive for improving security? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Infighting and OS wars blind us to this fact, that it's everyone's problem.