iBotNet, some rotten Apples

One thing that always pisses me off about Apple (one of many really) is that their customers like to claim they like Apple's OSX because it is more secure. Really? More secure. Well that is not true, at all. In fact, Apple's operating system and complimentary software (like safari) continues to be more vulnerable then the alternatives, including IE7/8. Recent capture the flag competitions and PEN testing have continued to show that Apple is quite vulnerable and usually the first to be hacked (the others get hacked too, by the way).

So why aren't more attacks against Apple machines happening? Why aren't there more news stories about huge Bot Nets of Apple machines that threaten to destroy the Internet as we know it? Simple, there aren't enough Apple machines out there for an attacker to justify going after them.

Think of it this way, if you were a drooling Romanian with a tendency for computer hacking and you had this kick ass Bot Net that you want to deploy by infecting computer across the Internet, for what kind of OSes and platforms would you write your virus? If you write your virus for say Windows, then it could infect something like 85% or more of the computers on the Internet. But, if you write it to only infect Apple OSX machines, then you are talking about 8-9% of machines on the Internet. It just isn't worth you drooling time to write a virus to attack Apple machines.

But, that may be changing. Recent news is that an all Apple Bot Net has been detected, so dubbed iBotnet. It is propagating via a pirated copy of iWork '09 and Adobe Photoshop CS4. And, the iBotnet has actually been used in a real DoS attack in the wild.

Perhaps the honeymoon is over for Apple. Perhaps they asked for this. All I know is that the religious Apple users need to stop claiming that they use Apple products because it is more secure and start realizing that they use it because they think it looks cool. Or perhaps, they think it is awesome to spend twice as much for a machine with inferior hardware. Or maybe, they think a one button mouse is actually worth more then a three button mouse. Or maybe, Apple customers should start running anti-virus software just like everyone else and realize that there computer is just as vulnerable as the windows machine you scoff at.