Apple’s rising popularity lures hackers

Financial Times ^ | Dec 5, 2007 | Kevin Allison

[driftdiver]

After years of relative safety, the Apple Mac is becoming an increasingly tempting target for malicious computer hackers, according to a new report published this week.

Security researchers have been aware of the threat to Apple since last year, when they detected the first piece of malicious code – or “malware” – specifically designed to target Apple.

Over the past few months, however, the number of malicious programmes has increased, according to a report published this week by F-Secure, an internet security company.

“Over the past two years, we had found one or two pieces of malware targeting Macs,” said Patrik Runald, an F-Secure security researcher. “Since October, we’ve found 100-150 variants.”

[Swordmaker]

Nope, haven’t read it. Let’s see... The Cookoo lays its eggs in the nests of another bird species and so relieves itself of the burden of rearing its own offspring, forcing another bird to do it. Sounds like our liberal welfare state.

[cinives]

Good analogy.

The book is a true story about a BSD exploit and one man’s quest to find the hacker. The author is a flaming liberal who worked at Lawrence Livermore labs and found the hack - then pursued the hacker til he was caught - all before the days of the Internet.

Interesting stuff.