Researcher cracks Mac in 10 seconds

ive used a PC all my life and just recently (start of the school year) have started using a mac.

somethings I like better in windows, somethings I like better in mac. i dont find one better then the other, but if i had to choose id say windows, just because its what im used to, CHANGE IS SCARY RAWRRRR.

I think we should all just be friends...... ok that's never going to happen. But you gotta admit that the tv add's for mac are funny? Can we all agree on that>/ lol


Cherry

Originally posted by CherryDuck
reply to post by spitefulgod

 

Just putting my 2 cents in, don't want to start a mac vs pc war (tho we all know that's what it will turn into lol

Yeah,

mac will take the high ground with their shiny armor,
PC will hold them off with sheer numbers,
once they've battered themselves for a while,
Linux launches a sneak attack from the east,
finishes everyone off... taking their software for de-compiling...
then returns home to continue smacking commodore around and making it do the housework,
while Unix whines about how Linux just isn't the nice boy he used to be.

... heheheh, commodore, what a loser...

this is sooo pointless,
you talk about 'mac' and 'pc'/'windows' asif your actually part of them,
give it up alright, your just a consumer who bought a product,
so stop cheering on like football fans do about 'their' team,
its sad.. really,

reply to post by johnsky


off topic:

commodore may be a loser, but tell me if you ever had one (me proud user of 64, 128 and amiga 500) how many fun hours has been with them and how many wit crappy 286 with dos ( you were lucky if you had 16 colors and not hercules mono gfx card).

miss the times with 50 games on cassete and turbo module for crack and turbo speed loading

without commodore there would not be consoles

COMMODORE RULES!



now on topic:

if hackers exploit MacOS for another 50 years it can not turn to a piece of crap that Microsoft OS is.

And i'm using Windows at home and Mac at work so i see the difference.
only crappy pc is far more cheaper and has lot's of games so...


But this is only my opinion so please no more pc/mac war. everyone has his own taste so respect it if moto here is deny ignorance.

Market is best critic.

More exploits , cheaper Macs. Then i'll buy one for home, hehe

Originally posted by Chrysalis
Plus there's the human factor. If I can get someone to load up backorifice...

LOL not in this decade...

2nd line
3rd

[edit on 3/21/2009 by nasdack24k]

All operating systems are vulnerable to any patient, persistent hacker. Apple's OS is a little more secure than windoze, which really isn't saying a whole lot. If you want the *marginally* better security of a non-MS operating system without having to pay for their over priced hardware, get a PC with running one of the flavors of Linux. Ubuntu is popular right now and very easy to use. Personally i still use windoze because Linux can't run Pro Tools and i refuse to pay the outrageous prices Apple demands for thier *slightly* better products.


TheAssociate

reply to post by TheAssociate


+1 Macs are so much more secure then windows. Linux/Unix based OSs are so much more secure just in the way they have been built.... I mean, in mac OS for something to even touch the system files you need to put in your password. There isnt much else that it can do to the system in any other case.
And if someone wants to hack your Mac you would have to be stupid enough to not be behind a hardware firewall or something of the type. Infact... any computer system on the internet should be behind a firewall of some degree.

what's up with the hate thread?
bummed mac users are just now open to hacking? pfffffff.
17 years on mac and i have not had 1 single incident of virus related problems...

when i had a pc, that POS melted several times a year due to malicious crap.

woohoo. we're big enough to finally attract attention.
weak thread.

Originally posted by zooplancton
what's up with the hate thread?
bummed mac users are just now open to hacking? pfffffff.
17 years on mac and i have not had 1 single incident of virus related problems...

Yes, but as pointed out earlier in the thread, a lot of that is to do with the Mac being a relatively niche market. There's no point writing exploits for a minority operating system. If your goal is maximum penetration, then why write for a such a small demographic? You go for where the biggest audience is, surely?

reply to post by zooplancton


Well this thread isnt really about viruses lol. Its about being able to hack macs through safari and like I said earlier any computer is hackable if its not stuck behind a firewall of some type and you should be fine if you dont go to random links that pop up.
Personaly I like competitions like this. It gives the broswer companies a little more help in securing their browsers.

[edit on 26/3/2009 by funky monk]

I think Macs/Unix/Linux computers are more secure if set up properly, but don't think they're immune to virus's. I always thought it was just that most hackers run off of these OS, so they don't want to infect their own community.

BTW-hardcore Ubuntu fan here. I've got it on my desktop and laptop. I have yet to find anything I did in vista that can't be done in Ubuntu. Especially considering wine..

I'm a PC technician(and no, I'm not only well versed in PCs, but I've studied MACs and worked on MACs(more so for graphic design).

I use a PC at home, but I learnt to do Graphic Design on a MAC when I did my course in it. I do music production on a PC as well.

I can tell you, it really doesn't matter which OS you choose. Contrary to many peoples' beliefs, MACs have their problems as well. They can lock up, freeze up, and sometimes crash. Do they do this as often as PCs? No!

Why? Well, it's the same reason PCs get infected with viruses more often. They're more common. Hackers and the likes do not cater for the minority. They make viruses more geared toward what would affect more people. More people have PCs. It's that simple. MACs have an entirely different kernel, coding and structure. Viruses can be made for them, but, they're not as popular(but, they are becoming more popular, and as their popularity goes up...so too would viruses/crashes etc.)

The crashes and lock ups for MAC do not happen as often as they do on PCs, because of the same issue. They're not as popular. Almost every piece of software/application/game made can be run a on PC. This is not so with MAC. As you can see, manufactures also cater for the majority as well. When you have so much different software for one platform, you're more likely to have software and hardware conflicts. The amount of work a PC may have to do(when it comes to managing apps) is usually more than a MAC does, because a PC caters to so many different apps, executing different commands, and to make things worse, a lot of software developers don't put too much effort into their coding. When a machine has to deal with all of these things, coupled with terrible coding on the manufactures part...you're more likely to have hardware/software conflicts.

Another reason why PCs have so many problems(or Windows rather), is because of Windows past approach, to try to make everything(applications), compatible with earlier releases of Windows. Apple does not put that same sort of effort into compatibility. Windows is slowly startin to realize the problems this cause, and are slowing starting to steer away from that. The way the OS is written...it's written in such a way(and retains some of it's old, problematic coding) to support older hardware and older software. This is basically like building a train that can use premium, desiel, unleaded and coal to run, but all in one compartment...eventually doing this will have to stop...because, as it caters for people who may only have access to coal, it can hinder the real advancements for people moving forward and wanting to use unleaded.

When Vista came out, it initally took the approach to seriously neglect compatibility, but people complained of this...so, Microsoft once again had to take steps back, instead of moving forward entrirely. But, they're still trying to steer the OS entirely forward, by slowly cutting back on old compatibility.

No OS is really superior as far as I'm concerned. You're worried about viruses for Windows? Get a damn good antivirus like Kaspersky, NOD32. You're worried about performace? Spend some money and upgrade your hardware(RAM, processor, video card, HD, etc). You want Windows to stop crashing so often? Either take the old apps off...or don't b!tch about it when Microsoft decides to cut backward compatibility...and start voicing your frustration at cruddy software developers and manufactures who poorly code their products. This was the major problem with Vista. When Vista came out, yes, it had it fair share of problems caused by the OS itself, but most problems consumers had with Vista, did not stem from Vista itself, but from poorly written code on the software developers' part.

A PC can be just as "safe" as a MAC...and, if MAC had the market(and it's getting there), a MAC can be just as virus/crashing-prone as a PC.

This MAC Vs. PC ware has to stop. It's stupid and usually just leads to people embarassing themselves by showing how ignorant they really are.

Originally posted by Merriman Weir
It's only Macintosh's place as a relatively expensive niche market that has kept it virus free in the first place. What's the point in writing exploits that will only exploit a very small target demographic?

I was waiting for someone with a clear head to say this, and hoping I wasn't stuck being the only one saying it!

If you honestly think back and think about it for a second... Most families for their home computers have Windows based PC... That's a pretty large target to 'infect' wouldn't you say?

The amount of people owning MAC's when this contest happened (wasn't it like 3 years back now???) was minute compared to PC owners.

Now that everyone is buying mac's, I definately forsee some virii being written for them... The numbers are almost there.

It's a waiting game.

Ok, not to be too pc bashing/pro MAC, but we really don't have much information a to what state the MAC was in security wise.

MAC's run FreeBSD under the glitz. It's a special version of FreeBSD known as the Darwin project. This "port" had been specificly designed for the OSX interface but overall at it's heart is still FreeBSD.

I run many FreeBSD servers. They are attacked constantly by the usual trolls and script kiddies. If a person has a 'clue', they can easily protect themselves from these kinds of exploits. The 2 main forms of control are IPFW and PF. Both are very good, provide extensive control and decent logging. If they aren't used then you rely on the software on the box to protect you.

In windows case even with the software firewall on, you still have the svchost process actually listening on the net. This is zero control and close to zero security. Mac's can be very secure. in fact, they can be FAR more secure than windows. They can also be very insecure. If you have any computer, and do not know the basics of ports, forwarding or security, it's a good idea to have a hardware based solution between you and the net with ANY operating system.

When I mention control, I a referring to allowing someone access, but disallowing others.
$[fwcmd] add deny tcp from 58.0.0.0/8 to any 21
The above will stop any person with a 58.x ip mask from connecting to ftp, but will allow the attempts to connect and allow others to access the ftp.
(try that with the windows firewall)

If the MAC in question were to have disallowed connections to itself from the 0.0.0.0 or the 127.x, 10.x, 192.x on the outside interface it may not have been hacked, but still hard to say because we just don't have enough information on the hack. Even malware that would open up a listen port would not be able to edit the rc.firewall script, and hup the service unless it was aware that this service was running, which doesn't respond to a probe.

By default, if the firewall service is failed for any reason the user except at the local system is completely locked out. (default to deny) This behaviour can be changed by reconfiguring the kernal and recompiling it, however that is beyond most users.

So what I'm saying is that because of the huge amount of possible configurations available with the MAC's basic underlying operating system it is possible to either be secure or insecure. Similar statements can be made of Linux, however my experience with Linux is limited. I also have extensive experience with windows, and very little can be done to make it secure, short of unplugging it from the net. This is the nature of a closed operating system. Please don't respond with "I know windows"..etc etc, as I have many many years in tcp networking with all flavors of windows except Vista. (hence I'm not bashing vista...yet)

If security is your concern, I suggest the Cisco Pix, on the high end, or a Linksys or D-link router on the low end. Or...if your really technical, setup a dual nic NAT Freebsd system with a honeypot, so you can really dick with people. They're extremely secure and log the crap out of everything.

Thanks for reading.
..Ex

reply to post by spitefulgod


I'm not surprised in the least bit. The fact that Mac addicts claim that their system is more stable in their sense is in fact incredibly ignorant. Any system programmed by a human has been susceptible to tampering by an attacker; Nothing is perfect. This will be so until forever, or at least someone discovers an incredible way of foiling this. A mac OS is just as vulnerable to a PC in the form of attacks; If macs would have taken Windows in the 90's as the OS of choice, then windows would be "virus-free" in the sense that no hackers care enough about the OS enough to exploit it. It's a minority. If macs take over, then windows will become the minority. I'll say "I told you so" if it ever happens.