Security, the Mac, and you
Seeing as how the interwebs as of late have been going absolutely fucking insane over this whole Macdefender keruffle, I think it’s time to sit down and stop being dumb about this. Yes, that includes you smug jackasses over in the Microsoft camp.
Now, to lay it out: No one is saying that the Mac is immune to any kind of malware. No one is saying that the Mac cannot be infected with any kind of virus/malware. However, what is true, is that there are no kinds of Mac malware that can do something without user authorization.
The way OS X’s permissions are set up, in order for any kind of malware to do it’s thing, you have to expressly give it permission with your username and password; OS X will prompt you for this. Generally, people are smart enough to the point where they won’t enter their password when they know they didn’t do something that requires admin level access. But a few are, and that’s likely where this whole thing started.
And of course, the media latches onto this, and we get a shit-ton of falsified information, security “experts” saying that the Day of Judgement has finally come, and the Mac will become just as plagued with malware as Windows has.
Um, no.
It’s all just sensationalist bullshit.
If you read the news on this, you would think it’s a widespread problem and millions of people were hit by MacDefender. I’m pretty sure that less than a couple thousand were hit by this. Certainly not as bad as the media makes it out to be.
Also, take note how many news articles will use weasel words to try and make their point. Skimming through a few articles here and there, I’m noticing use of phrases like “confirmed by a security agency”, “confirmed by an independent researcher”, or “confirmed by Symantec”.
The former two, of course, should be easy to discredit since it’s likely the author of an article employing these phrases is making shit up and using these phrases to cover it up. The latter is bullshit because, of course, Antivirus companies are going to inflate the problem so they can pitch their product at a market that doesn’t need it.
