Safari users beware

[sxlalan]

Mac attacks seem to be comming thick and fast at the moment - 3 in the last 2 weeks. No where near Windows scales but a worrying trend. The latest vulnerability is in Safari and users may want to take the precautions detailed here until a fix is out.

Alan

 

[dedee]

Alan,
thanks for posting, the fix is quite a simple one until apple release an upgrade

Andy

 

[Mike-W]

Spoke to our (Mac) IT Engineer about this one, he said that as it is a small Application that needs to be installed -your Mac will ask for your permission before installing this application, so you should be OK if you read the pop up window before clicking 'yes' to install.
I have set my preference back to the default setting!

Mike

 

[sxlalan]

for the complacent....

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/mac/0,39020393,39256036,00.htm

Alan

 

[dedee]

Alan,
I am wrong to think that my router security would prevent such a thing happening?

Andy

 

[dedee]

This places a slightly different perspective on the ZDnet article.

http://test.doit.wisc.edu/

It the hacked machine "was not hacked from the outside just by being on the Internet. It was hacked from within, by someone who was allowed to have a local account on the box. That is a huge distinction. "



Andy

 

[sxlalan]

Not at all, a correctly configured router should stop most attempts to break in "uninvited" (if you knowingly or unknowingly install some dodgy software then that is another matter). I don't think Mac users need to be particularly worried at the moment anyway, as the few known exploits around at the moment are really just proof-of-concept type efforts and aren't really intended as serious attacks. As the above article indicates, the Mac userbase is really too small for most hackers to be bothered with. I really just posted the link to help people stop being complacent i.e. just because I use a Mac shouldn't mean that I assume that I am invulnerable to hackers or that my OS is more secure than any other. Sensible practices, such as not clicking on links in spam etc, should be adhered to whatever your choice of platform.

Cheers

Alan

 

[sxlalan]

Hi Andy

I think the zdnet article made it quite clear that the users were given a local account (at least the revised version). The undelying issue is simply that the complexity of modern OSs and the skill of hackers mean that everyone should be security concious whatever their platform. 20-30 mins is scarily fast for an OS that has received littly hacker attention, local account or not!

Cheers

Alan