The thing is ... not many virus writers want to actually take credit for anything ... so not sure how that would all play out. Ever since that one teenager got nailed to the wall for producing a virus variant (he didn't even write it, just used a virus creator tool that used canned exploits) you don't see virus writers stepping up and taking credit for writing anything for fear of getting caught and sued out the ying-yang heh.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mguertin
The thing is ... not many virus writers want to actually take credit for anything ... ....
Well, "not many" might be the truth.
But I think there are hackers who dream of taking down OS X, for the glory.
This article is older, and the claim that a Mac "fell" to hackers is quite suspect, but it illustrates the fame and glory that would befall the first OS X virus writer:
EXCERPT: "...Apple had a rough security week. Vista was hacked. And Linux is unhackable. Those takeaways appear to be the consensus view following the Pwn2Own contest but it’s not that simple.
Under the contest rules, organizers offered the Sony Vaio (Ubuntu 7.10), Fujitsu U810 (Vista Ultimate), and the MacBook (OS X 10.5.2) as prizes. Sure, the MacBook fell first at the Pwn2Own contest at CanSecWest last week. And yes, the MacBook was fully patched and still fell. But the odds were strong that the MacBook would have been the first to fall no matter what Apple did.
Why?
Glory. Taking down a MacBook gets the headlines. It’s sexy. It’s a blogger’s dream. The more prominent Apple becomes the more hackers want to attack it. Simply put, security by obscurity isn’t an option for Apple anymore. Why wouldn’t hackers target the MacBook first? ..."
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I had 2 funny redirects happen from within Firefox today.
I rolled over an image in Flickr and was taken to a website about China and television and subsequently, my browser mysteriously opened another site I had no intention to visit.
Is anyone aware of what could cause this and if I should get a malware/spyware scanner? I am running Norton antivirus and that is coming back clear.
Any advice about how to investigate and what to use would be appreciated.
I had 2 funny redirects happen from within Firefox today.
I rolled over an image in Flickr and was taken to a website about China and television and subsequently, my browser mysteriously opened another site I had no intention to visit.
Is anyone aware of what could cause this.........
That's the nature of the Net.
Are you new to the internet or if not, have you never seen poker and other sites you don't want opening up in your browser before?
Quote:
and if I should get a malware/spyware scanner? I am running Norton antivirus and that is coming back clear.
You don't need a malware/spyware scanner on the Mac and I would strongly recommend you get rid of Norton anti-virus.
For one, there is nothing Norton can scan for, but worse, a few years back when I used Norton, it caused really mysterious problems on my Mac that all just simply went away after I removed Norton completely - which wasn't that easy - don't know if they have an uninstall option now.
As KRS said Norton AV is an absolute No Go on the Mac platform.
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