Re: Thursday Trump

In article <gkreme-6D95D1.17364531012008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Lewis <gkreme@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<jollyroger-A5CFAB.17353431012008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jolly Roger <jollyroger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<4f096d3a-61e2-4456-9e66-f92a5e5a485b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"���© The OS/2 Guy ���©" <os2guy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

OS X Is Really Immune To Viruses
Poor Microsoft users. They have to deal with over 200,000 wild malware
(virus, trojans and worms) affecting their Windows world of computing.
The OS X user is immune entirely to all Windows virus, trojans and
worms. That doesn't mean OS X isn't impenetrable, but to access your
system and implant malware the attacker would have to know your
personal system password.

What a load of rubbish. Mac OS X is *not* immune to viruses, trojans,
and worms. And to penetrate a Mac OS X does not necessarily require
knowing your personal system password.

The Mac is, in point of fact, immune to viruses because there are no
viruses for OS X. None.

You're partially correct. There are plenty proof-of-concept viruses in
existence for Mac OS X, most of which have never been seen in the wild.
There is one genuine Mac OS X virus, albeit a very unsuccessful one that
has indeed been seen in the wild:

<http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=102379>

The classification of this malware is ambiguous. It sort of fits the
"trojan" classification, because it presents itself as a file that the
user must open to activate it. It also fits the "virus" classification,
because it does copy itself and attempt to propagate itself to other
computers.

There are a couple of really pathetic trojans,
and I think there was one theoretical worm.

And then there are the thousands of other vulnerabilities that don't
fall into the "virus" and "worm" classification, like Apache PHP
exploits, SMB exploits, and so on. While Mac OS X's default
configuration is fairly secure, the operating system itself is not
immune to attack. There are Mac bot nets out there to prove this:

<http://preview.tinyurl.com/k7665>

But you can count actual
windows viruses and you can't do that for OS X.

If The OS/2 Guy had limited his claims to "only viruses" then I might
not have had as much a problem with his statements. But his statement
that "The OS X user is immune entirely to all Windows virus, trojans and
worms" is a load of baloney. *NO* operating system is immune. Period.

--
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JR
.

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