Posted on 08/22/2005 10:47:38 AM PDT by ShadowAce
A customer once asked me how best to protect their computer system from hackers. I recommended that they don't connect the machine to the internet, unplug it when they weren't using it, and never accept floppies or CD's from friends.
Then I offered to sell them a Mac. :-) They could keep their internet access, leave it on 24/7, and insert any floppies or CD's they wanted. (Except for those mini-cd's and credit card cd's... Those were never intended to work with slot loading drive mechanisms.)
That's quite a sales pitch. :)
Your first suggestion was right the second is false hope. Every system can be hacked..
Because, with a market share measured (when measured by online activity) that has even fallen behind Linux, hackers don't have time to crack on Macs, they're after biger game.
According to the new Security Now podcast, the networks were infected by laptops connected to the network after they had been online at home or on the road. Once zotob got inside the corporate firewall, it was open season.
Shows how one poor security policy can wreck a network.
Every computer system can be hacked, but the Mac OS doesn't lend itself to unskilled, remote hacking.
Every computer system can be hacked, but the Mac OS doesn't lend itself to unskilled, remote hacking.
Hacking through a power cord????
Boy will be boys. Security is slowly getting better, but as long as we have MS Windows platform as our OS there will be attacks. If you want "almost" attack free computer, switch to Linux/Unix/Mac.
Hardly, no. But unplugged it was unlikely that someone could sit down and access their machine in person, without first knowing that the machine was unplugged.
In my experience, when people don't expect a computer to be unplugged, they don't normally check the power cord.
I'll take your word on that one, but i would think password protecting your computer would be much better alternative, even if that could be bypassed, than simply unplugging it.
When properly configured..
We had ztob get inside our trusted zone by latching itself to a laptop being used by some part-time oldtimer who never heard of a firewall. I could kill the person who gave him the IP address but that's neither here nor there. When I checked the 2000 servers, they were asking permssion for mousebm to access the internet. Mousebm appeared in regedit as a legacy mouse app. Why would a legacy mouse app want to access the internet? I refused permission, deleted the file, rebooted and it came right back. That spells worm in my dictionary. I deleted it and replaced it with a text file with the same name which I made read-only and hidden. That kept it at bay until the virus detectors could catch it.
Frankly, I don't care why Macs aren't attacked because they aren't. I'd rather be part of the 3% that uses Macs than the 95% or so that uses Windows and has to run a collection of extra software to keep their machine from being taken over every time it's plugged into the Internet.
Whatever floats your boat ..
Exactly. What I really want is choice. If, out of the available choices, you choose Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Free BSD, or whatever, that's fine. That we have a choice is important.
Mr. Gates might not agree but, given that his corporation introduces more bugs than Fear Factor, he keeps the competition in business.
I hope I live long enough to see the competition do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to the IBM mainframe business. Being in BIG corporate IT I don't have a choice of OS's right now.
ping
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