Flame virus set to spread like wildfire (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/flame-virus-set-to-spread-like-wildfire/article2447114/)
G&M

Too funny, the G&M use a picture of a Macbook Pro to illustrate a story about the Flame virus...

http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01411/web-flame_jpg_1411318cl-8.jpg

It is perhaps the most sophisticated piece of malicious software ever designed – a digital surveillance device so complex it ran on sensitive government computer networks for years, undetected.

And now, a tool that was almost certainly developed for state-sanctioned cyberwarfare is out in the open, soon to make its way into the hands of everyone from computer virus researchers to criminal gangs...

What the article should say is that the best way to protect yourself from Flame is to buy a Mac...

it says "Among its features are the abilities to take screenshots, record video through the infected computer’s camera"
oh boy.. now I hate to see what comprising situation they caught me in LOL
hoping - it is only PC based virus.

it says "Among its features are the abilities to take screenshots, record video through the infected computer’s camera"
oh boy.. now I hate to see what comprising situation they caught me in LOL
hoping - it is only PC based virus.

One good thing about Apple's design is that in order for your iSight camera to be operating the little green light must be on, alerting you to a possible invasion of privacy. You can also turn on your camera remotely on your own computer, although the green light will come on. A number of thieves have been caught red-handed this way as it turns out.

ahhh...the problems of using file photos to run with stories.

To be fair the tagline on the pic does identify it as a file photo, and if a macbook pro was running windows it could be vulnerable.

but it would be nice if the story did differentiate between windows and OS X.

ahhh...the problems of using file photos to run with stories.

To be fair the tagline on the pic does identify it as a file photo, and if a macbook pro was running windows it could be vulnerable.

but it would be nice if the story did differentiate between windows and OS X.

Only on the Bootcamp or virtual (Fusion Parallels) partition though... OSX would be untouched.

One good thing about Apple's design is that in order for your iSight camera to be operating the little green light must be on, alerting you to a possible invasion of privacy. You can also turn on your camera remotely on your own computer, although the green light will come on. A number of thieves have been caught red-handed this way as it turns out.

thats untrue. there are numerous 3rd party tracking/security type apps that enable the camera to take pics without the light coming on.

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thats untrue. there are numerous 3rd party tracking/security type apps that enable the camera to take pics without the light coming on.

Really? Can you name some? Or one?

Phew!! PC virus. Back to what I was doing before almost getting caught red handed :-p

People just love spreading FUD, don't they?
... ... ...

Yup!!!

But every once in a while, someone will post an actual good legit and accurate reference to an accurate post/site with proper informative and supported info.

But getting harder to find lately it seems.

Really? Can you name some? Or one?

I have come across and read of some such software and sites that can affect a Mac user in such a fashion, but I can't find any ULR links I thought I had saved and/or to support that info,

thats untrue. there are numerous 3rd party tracking/security type apps that enable the camera to take pics without the light coming on.

I have come across and read of some such software and sites that can affect a Mac user in such a fashion, but I can't find any ULR links I thought I had saved and/or to support that info,

Exactly. This is what AV creators say when they try to tell you that Macs are no longer safe from viruses. They can't name any specific threats but "oh, they're out there for sure." I've read about various types of malware, certainly, but there are no viruses for OSX on about twelve years now, so that's a pretty good track record. Sure it's CONCEIVABLE that a script could disable the green iSight camera light, or the light could burn out, but I remember this same question came up on ehMac a couples months ago and the concensus was, no, Apple safeguards against that possibility.

People just love spreading FUD, don't they?

1) This is a PC virus. It will not run on OS X. No OS X variant has been detected. There is no evidence present in the virus itself to even remotely suggest that Mac OS X was ever a target, or will be in the future.

2) Just about every scanner company out there is aware of Flame/Skywiper now. It is apparently easy to detect and fairly easy to remove. While the virus itself is "complex", it doesn't appear to be that crafty- Stuxnet/Duqu was a weapon strictly designed to disrupt uranium processing, whereas Flame is designed to be more of a swiss army knife.

Frankly, the only people who have to worry about this stuff are the folks running decade old computers with ancient unpatched versions of Windows.

In other words, nothing to see here. Move along.

PS: if anyone does care about the guts of this thing, I recommend the report written by people who actually know what they're doing: http://www.crysys.hu/skywiper/skywiper.pdf... Rather then the random FUD this article is attempting to spread.

-DN

Did you even read the original post... it isn't about the virus so much as it is about the irony of the G&M using the photo of a Macbook Pro to illustrate the article, it was just that, every one knows that the Flame virus will not infect OSX.

Did you even read the original post... it isn't about the virus so much as it is about the irony of the G&M using the photo of a Macbook Pro to illustrate the article, it was just that, every one knows that the Flame virus will not infect OSX.

Oh sure, Screature. Always trying to kill the fun by referring us back to the point of the original post. Killjoy.

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And how do you know that system is running Mac OS X? Those systems support Bootcamp. There's no GUI present on that shot so there is no way to tell what he's running.

I've been to more then one conference in the past four months and every single person going up on stage to give a presentation has had some sort of a Macintosh (an old Macbook, MBP, or MBA). Not all of them were running Mac OS X, some guys had their systems booted into Bootcamp and others were running Windows under VMware Fusion on OS X.

There were only a few vendor-specific people who had Windows gear, but none of them were getting up in-front of an audience to present.



I really, really hate this sort of attitude.

The reason why we're "safe" from Flame is because the people who wrote it have absolutely zero interest in Mac OS X. When was the last time you saw a Mac sitting somewhere in a high security environment guarded by people with guns? When was the last time you saw a Mac driving an entire industrial facility?

We're not the target here, that's why we are safe. If we were, then this entire article would be about OS X and not about Windows.

I still think the article is crap because even though this thing has existed in the petri dish it's been swimming around in for years, now that everyone knows about it so they know what to look for and how to remove it.

-DN

Chilax dude... It was all meant in good fun... everything you say I think most of here already know.