A little story about Malware.....

[2004tdigls]

exactly, spear phishing

the world wonders why guys try to download the newest

Britney Spears "view"

buried in the JPG is a dial home trojan horse

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: 2004tdigls
exactly, spear phishing

the world wonders why guys try to download the newest

Britney Spears "view"

buried in the JPG is a dial home trojan horse


Yes, same thing with MP3's.

 

[saberz]

Norton and McAfee are the two WORST suites to use, even in a corporate setting. The only reason they are widely used is because you get a better deal with licensing. In my old company I ran tests and my own findings came down to two:

-Eset NOD32
-Kaspersky

Now I went with Kaspersky(2005) due to one factor, usage. NOD32 at the time was a little bit more technical in respect to how it reported items and users interacting with it if necessary. Kaspersky laid it out plain and simple if the need ever did arise for them to interact with the software(which shouldn't be the case most of the time). Deployment and maintenance was super easy for both, and pricing while higher was well worth it.

 

[NJC]

Our company (>300 people) now uses Sophos. Download sites (even Ubuntu!), gambling, Gmail et al are all blocked. Many times I can't see the Photobucket pics posted here.

 

[Mark_Walk]

Originally Posted By: 97prizm

For all of the apple nuts on the site, mac books now have 250,000 viruses maleware etc and have roughly 1000 new problems per month show up. Use unix or linux, easy to use, (Mint, ubuntu, fedora,). Linux has Significantly fewer virus related problems than apple. Shoot apple just just cheated and uses BSD underneath for the hard work and installed a different less sucure GUI. What a waste of money.


Not sure what constitutes an "APPLE NUT" but I do have a MacBook Pro. Half the computers I've owned in my life were Macs (never had a single virus or any problem AT ALL) and half were PC's that were constantly rendered useless by malware. I'm no computer geek...just want my computer to work so that's what I buy. I think the nuts are the goobers that like to play the Mac vs. PC beeotching games. So, buy what you want and use it and there ya go.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Glad to hear you nailed this down. Hopefully you made a few $$ in the process.

Nod32, Kapersky are real good. I had great sucess with Vipre Enterprise.

If people insist on clicking on everything then they will eventually end up with the nasties on their machine.

You're right, and moreover, once they go home and let their kids surf, anything is possible.

 

[Mystic]

When Norton became bloated software several years ago I moved to NOD32 and Kaspersky. The past few years Norton certainly is not bloated software anymore but it is hard to uninstall all the components and I have heard of problems with the 2012 versions.

I think NOD32 has made a comeback with version 5. I started to get disillusioned with Kaspersky when it was incompatible with AMD software for my video card. But based on what I know I think I would put NOD32 (or Esset Smart Security-the program with firewall) number one and Kaspersky number two.

And Malwarebyte's Antimalware is a great backup and second program that is free.

But no matter how good of an antivirus program a person has it is still important to practice safe and sane internet behavior.

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: Mark_Walk


Not sure what constitutes an "APPLE NUT" but I do have a MacBook Pro. Half the computers I've owned in my life were Macs (never had a single virus or any problem AT ALL) and half were PC's that were constantly rendered useless by malware. I'm no computer geek...just want my computer to work so that's what I buy. I think the nuts are the goobers that like to play the Mac vs. PC beeotching games. So, buy what you want and use it and there ya go.


quit clicking yes.. I havent had a virus in 10 years on my home computer or work notebook.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: Mark_Walk
Originally Posted By: 97prizm

For all of the apple nuts on the site, mac books now have 250,000 viruses maleware etc and have roughly 1000 new problems per month show up. Use unix or linux, easy to use, (Mint, ubuntu, fedora,). Linux has Significantly fewer virus related problems than apple. Shoot apple just just cheated and uses BSD underneath for the hard work and installed a different less sucure GUI. What a waste of money.


Not sure what constitutes an "APPLE NUT" but I do have a MacBook Pro. Half the computers I've owned in my life were Macs (never had a single virus or any problem AT ALL) and half were PC's that were constantly rendered useless by malware. I'm no computer geek...just want my computer to work so that's what I buy. I think the nuts are the goobers that like to play the Mac vs. PC beeotching games. So, buy what you want and use it and there ya go.


I think I've sussed out the problem between the Windows machines you've owned and them being constantly infected... and its not Windows that was the problem.

Sounds like it was a case of you clicking things you shouldn't have been clicking or visiting some questionable sites. No OS is going to protect you from poor user habits. The only reason you haven't had any problems with infections on the Macs is that until relatively recently they were too small of a target for virus/malware developers to bother with.

That is changing as more and more people with the attitude of "Macs are totally secure man, no more viruses for me like I used to get with Winblows" are buying Macs. More purchases of Macs widens the target environment for malware developers and making them a much more attractive target.

I suspect that based on your admission of your problems with constant malware infections on Windows machines (and the user habits that implies) that you personally are going to start experiencing "constant infections" on your Macs in the near future.

As for my own personal experience with Windows, I've owned nothing but Windows machines starting from the days of Win 3.1 on DOS 5.1. I've dealt with 2 infections in that time on my own personal machines. One was about a decade ago on Win98 and came from my girlfriend opening an email attachment. It was picked up by AVG, though it took a bit of work to remove. The second infection was on my wife's laptop about 2 years ago that was a browser hijack/redirection. It was missed by Avast but cleaned up using Combofix and HitmanPro.

The last virus I encountered on my own personal machine was about two weeks ago when I was cleaning up some machines donated to my wife's church. The USB drive I was using was infected after I plugged it into one of the donated machines. When I plugged it into my laptop to transfer some more files to, MSE picked it up right away and removed it.

That's not to say I haven't dealt with a lot of malware infections over the years while working on other people's machines. Again, though those infections were the result of poor user habits.

Speaking of Apple, here's a nice article on iOS and its security issues that have been exploited to jailbreak phones and iPads and which are the same exploits that can be used to put malware on the systems.
http://whmurray.blogspot.com/2011/07/viruses-ios-and-apple.html

 

[MrHorspwer]

Quote:
The only reason you haven't had any problems with infections on the Macs is that until relatively recently they were too small of a target for virus/malware developers to bother with.


People have been using this exact same line for the past 10 YEARS.

It's kind of like the old guy sitting on his porch yelling at the neighborhood kids running across his lawn, "Just you wait! I'm gonna get you one of these days!" He never gets out of his chair though.

Of course, the other excuse is to just blame malware, virus, and trojans on user surfing habits. {removed insult towards another member}

Maybe we've forgotten since Windows 7 has been around, but Windows XP was riddled with security holes. From the time it was introduced up until the third service pack, it needed more patches than Edward Scissorhands on a waterbed. Microsoft "patch Tuesday" earned it's name for a reason.

With Windows 7 closing most of those holes, the next best thing has to been exploit the low hanging fruit in Adobe's products and Java.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Quote:
Speaking of Apple, here's a nice article on iOS and its security issues that have been exploited to jailbreak phones and iPads and which are the same exploits that can be used to put malware on the systems.


Old article is old. PDF parsing doesn't work for jailbreaking anymore.

As it stands, there are no untethered jailbreaks for iOS 5. That means you need to physically have the device hooked to a computer running your jailbreak software. Even then, there are currently no jailbreaks for the iPhone 4S or iPad 2, only earlier devices running iOS 5.

Anyhow, I'd love to see this new exploit in action...

:knock::knock:

"Hi, I noticed the Apple sticker on the back of your car. I write malicious software for iOS devices and was just in the neighborhood. Would you mind if I borrowed your phone so I can tether it to my laptop here and install some malware?"

On the other hand, did you happen to read this gem, also from the posted article:

Quote:
Android is too open to ever be trusted.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer

People have been using this exact same line for the past 10 YEARS.

Your point? With less than a 5% market share worldwide until just this year the point is valid.

Quote:
Of course, the other excuse is to just blame malware, virus, and trojans on user surfing habits. {removed insult towards another member}

Hmmm. So malware just magically appears out of the ether?

Explain how some people can go years using Windows computers and run across only a couple of instances of an infection and others inexplicably have their windows boxes riddled full of malware.

They're running the same OS... so its not the OS.

Wait! I've figured it out. Its the malware fairy. That's the cause. When you go to sleep at night she sneaks in the door, takes the loose bits your computer has hidden under its case and in exchange leaves a nice "gift".

Admittedly, the gift is not nearly as welcome as a shiny quarter.

 

[91344George]

The BEST malware protection is located between a humans two ears and is free to use for life.

THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK ON ANYTHING!

If you have ANY doubt don't click!

People need to be TAUGHT this. But they aren't .

The best security suite is useless if folks don't practice safe internet use.

 

[Mystic]

Well, I know how some people are constantly getting their computers infected with malware. A guy I know at work loves porn and his home computers are CONSTANTLY infected with something! If somebody insists on going to the wrong websites and downloading junk to their computer something bad will eventually happen. Apple Computers have been 5% or less of the desktop market in the world up until very recently and the bad guys target as many computers as they can. So they usually target Windows computers. That is common sense and more malware is appearing all the time for Apple Computers.

The very first computer viruses I remember having to deal with were viruses for Apple Computers. One of those was accidentally placed on a CD that was included with a Mac magazine. I don't remember having any problems with Windows computers up until fairly recently and since then there has been an explosion of malware throughout the world.

 

[javacontour]

I was at a customer site a couple of days ago and the security guard asked me what the best AV is. After I suggested he stop using Windows and use Solaris, I told him seriously that he is the best AV. Don't install stuff you don't understand, don't do day to day tasks as a privileged user, and keep whatever you are choosing to use updated as well as keep the OS updated.

Once I took admin rights away from the kids on their computer and got oilBabe to do day to day work as a non-privileged user I've not experienced any issues.

Before, when we were dating, I'd unsnag their computer a few times each year.

 

[FastGame]

Originally Posted By: 97prizm

For all of the apple nuts on the site, mac books now have 250,000 viruses maleware etc and have roughly 1000 new problems per month show up.


Yes, and "aliens are killing cows in Montana"

HaHa

Hey, I'm always willing to learn, you have any data that backs up your....hmmm, outrageous claim ?

 

[Mark_Walk]

Originally Posted By: buickman50401
Originally Posted By: Mark_Walk
Originally Posted By: 97prizm

For all of the apple nuts on the site, mac books now have 250,000 viruses maleware etc and have roughly 1000 new problems per month show up. Use unix or linux, easy to use, (Mint, ubuntu, fedora,). Linux has Significantly fewer virus related problems than apple. Shoot apple just just cheated and uses BSD underneath for the hard work and installed a different less sucure GUI. What a waste of money.


Not sure what constitutes an "APPLE NUT" but I do have a MacBook Pro. Half the computers I've owned in my life were Macs (never had a single virus or any problem AT ALL) and half were PC's that were constantly rendered useless by malware. I'm no computer geek...just want my computer to work so that's what I buy. I think the nuts are the goobers that like to play the Mac vs. PC beeotching games. So, buy what you want and use it and there ya go.


I think I've sussed out the problem between the Windows machines you've owned and them being constantly infected... and its not Windows that was the problem.

Sounds like it was a case of you clicking things you shouldn't have been clicking or visiting some questionable sites. No OS is going to protect you from poor user habits. The only reason you haven't had any problems with infections on the Macs is that until relatively recently they were too small of a target for virus/malware developers to bother with.

That is changing as more and more people with the attitude of "Macs are totally secure man, no more viruses for me like I used to get with Winblows" are buying Macs. More purchases of Macs widens the target environment for malware developers and making them a much more attractive target.

I suspect that based on your admission of your problems with constant malware infections on Windows machines (and the user habits that implies) that you personally are going to start experiencing "constant infections" on your Macs in the near future.

As for my own personal experience with Windows, I've owned nothing but Windows machines starting from the days of Win 3.1 on DOS 5.1. I've dealt with 2 infections in that time on my own personal machines. One was about a decade ago on Win98 and came from my girlfriend opening an email attachment. It was picked up by AVG, though it took a bit of work to remove. The second infection was on my wife's laptop about 2 years ago that was a browser hijack/redirection. It was missed by Avast but cleaned up using Combofix and HitmanPro.

The last virus I encountered on my own personal machine was about two weeks ago when I was cleaning up some machines donated to my wife's church. The USB drive I was using was infected after I plugged it into one of the donated machines. When I plugged it into my laptop to transfer some more files to, MSE picked it up right away and removed it.

That's not to say I haven't dealt with a lot of malware infections over the years while working on other people's machines. Again, though those infections were the result of poor user habits.

Speaking of Apple, here's a nice article on iOS and its security issues that have been exploited to jailbreak phones and iPads and which are the same exploits that can be used to put malware on the systems.
http://whmurray.blogspot.com/2011/07/viruses-ios-and-apple.html


Way too much [censored] to read here beyond the first paragraph but keep preaching brother....I'm sure some one will listen. Keep spending your money on Norton if you want and I'll keep using my MacBook Pro without any problems (and clicking on the same stuff that kills a PC).

 

[Mark_Walk]

Ahhh...didn't take long for the Midwest Buick driving Baptists to bring out the porn argument for all the malware problems.

Some of the worst Malware infections my computers ever had were from discount electronics websites that I went to looking for bargan Christmas gifts. Of course this has been 4 or 5 years ago which was the last time I used a PC at home. Maybe that doesn't happen anymore?

Isn't it annoying when you buy a new PC and it's loaded with software offers you have to wade through when you start the darn thing up? If Microsoft would build the hardware and all the software on a computer and that's all it had on it and it all worked seamlessly and they were competitively priced vs. a Mac I would buy it. It's not about the name for me..it's about what works (although I do own a lot of Apple stock, bought at $180 per share, now at around $400)

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Originally Posted By: Mark_Walk

Isn't it annoying when you buy a new PC and it's loaded with software offers you have to wade through when you start the darn thing up? If Microsoft would build the hardware and all the software on a computer and that's all it had on it and it all worked seamlessly and they were competitively priced vs. a Mac I would buy it.


Time for you to buy one, it's called the Microsoft Signature program:
Link to ZDNet article

Microsoft needed to have this program available years ago. But at least they do have it now.

 

[Mark_Walk]

So, Microsoft has written the software to protect the computer from [censored]? They also built the computer itself (says Microsoft on the notebook)?

If so I'll look into it once my MacBook dies....could be a while though.