- Jan 16, 2017
- 1,469
So Much for Mac Is More Secure than Windows: macOS Malware Increased by 270%
- Thread starter Deletedmessiah
- Start date
MacOS does a lot right, but they also do things that increase their threat surface and leak telemetry. I sort of feel like OS security in order of least to most secure (generally, but there obviously are exceptions);
Windows -> MacOS -> HP-UX -> Solaris -> Linux -> Debian -> BSD -> ChromeOS
I consider Windows the worst opinion for anyone unless they need specific Windows-Only applications or games. I certainly wouldn't run Windows or MacOS unless I had to, they're my bottom choices.
Windows -> MacOS -> HP-UX -> Solaris -> Linux -> Debian -> BSD -> ChromeOS
I consider Windows the worst opinion for anyone unless they need specific Windows-Only applications or games. I certainly wouldn't run Windows or MacOS unless I had to, they're my bottom choices.
So is having an av in High Sierra needed .I was thinking of comodo because of sandbox?Thks
Didn't know COMODO had a sandbox for OS X?
Yes I downloaded it but did not install it.
I recommend you do use security on OS X. Personally. It's your call though. OS X can be just as bad as Windows, but personally I think of OS X as safer with some tweaks but that's just me.
Just don't want something that slows down os x.It does run a little smoother than windows 10 .
All security will slow down something one way or another whether it be system-wide change without you knowing, a dialog before XXX. There will be more logical instructions 24/7 when monitored scope is triggered.
However if it outweighs the negative then it's the path to go IMO.
I always found ESET to be non-noticeable when running on Windows, not sure about OS X.
- Feb 2, 2013
- 440
This is quite interesting considering I am quite new to the MacOS world and now use one as my everyday laptop since I started college. I still believe that gatekeeper is doing a pretty good job at keeping malware out. I find it difficult enough to find Windows malware in the wild by looking for it on purpose. I can just imagine how much harder MacOS malware is to find.
I'm going to hold off on a AV as I rather not have a slowdown and I believe I know what I am doing. I mean I am not your everyday computer user. I'm an I.T student for the love of God. I like to think I know what I am doing. I don't install much software at all.
All I got on my Mac is the default Apple stuff along with Microsoft Office, VMWare Fusion, and my VPN. I don't need anything else for school.
When I was younger I used to be called a happy clicker. I would click yes to everything and not even read it and I would end up infecting Windows really bad back when I used to be a pirate and used things such as LimeWire. It forced myself to learn how to remove viruses myself and that's how I began how to learn how to reinstall Windows by myself and stuff.
I never pirate anymore. I learned my lessons the hard way by getting infections almost weekly. I use Netflix and I'm more than happy to pay for Spotify since I love it so much and use it everyday and the added student discount really helps out. I will also buy all the software I need instead of searching for cracks and whatnot which are only going to get me into trouble in the end and I don't condone piracy in any shape or form whatsoever.
I'm going to hold off on a AV as I rather not have a slowdown and I believe I know what I am doing. I mean I am not your everyday computer user. I'm an I.T student for the love of God. I like to think I know what I am doing. I don't install much software at all.
All I got on my Mac is the default Apple stuff along with Microsoft Office, VMWare Fusion, and my VPN. I don't need anything else for school.
When I was younger I used to be called a happy clicker. I would click yes to everything and not even read it and I would end up infecting Windows really bad back when I used to be a pirate and used things such as LimeWire. It forced myself to learn how to remove viruses myself and that's how I began how to learn how to reinstall Windows by myself and stuff.
I never pirate anymore. I learned my lessons the hard way by getting infections almost weekly. I use Netflix and I'm more than happy to pay for Spotify since I love it so much and use it everyday and the added student discount really helps out. I will also buy all the software I need instead of searching for cracks and whatnot which are only going to get me into trouble in the end and I don't condone piracy in any shape or form whatsoever.
- Jan 16, 2017
- 1,469
You're quite safe with MacOS. The chance to getting infected on Mac is still much less compared to Windows and especially when you have security knowledge, common sense and you don't pirate.
- May 3, 2015
- 1,535
As long as you're aware the chance to get infected is not zero and act accordingly you should be Ok. Even 5 years or so ago, the last time I owned a Mac, the chance was not 0 as many people believed.
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Serious malware-writers doesn't care much about the OS being strong or not, they care about the ratio "time+resources spent/benefit" , more an OS is used, more benefits it will give, more chances it will be targeted.
Now Mac then Linux will see more attacks in the future.
Now Mac then Linux will see more attacks in the future.
Exactly. Even applying some basic lockdown practices on MacOS would make it vastly superior to vanilla mac. (and lightyears more secure than Windows) Once those are applied I wouldn't even bother running an AV on Mac and think the AV might just increase your attack surface. Mac is 'fairly' secure out of the box but with a few simple adjustments it can be made quite nicely secure. Linux and other OS's have a lot of tweaks that can be implemented to make them exceptionally secure.
Even Chromebooks have security changes that can be made to further enhance their already phenomenal security. Simple changes in most cases, such as disabling WiFi adapter when in sleep mode reduces your exposure. But of course, a Chromebook is a powerwash away from being factory new, and since the COS kernal has no user space modification capability it's resoundingly secure. Anyone that has messed with DEVmode and Crouton knows even then hacking ChromeOS with physical access is still a nightmare most of the time. I will bother another thread about some Chromebook ultimate security configs, fun stuff.
- Feb 2, 2013
- 440
I agree! MacOS by design is more secure than Windows cause of it's UNIX background but that doesn't mean it is immune to viruses. Gatekeeper is a pretty amazing feature though. It will block a ton of stuff that is unknown to Apple or if you download anything from the internet.
I go back and forth between Windows and MacOS everyday. I gave up going crazy with configs on Windows. I just use a standard user account and Windows Defender. That's good enough for me. It's quite interesting at school that we have Windows 10 and they are using the built in security as well. I am guessing they got some kind of network firewall to block stuff.
I'm learning a lot from my Windows Server class on how Windows works and how they secure it and all the security policies and permissions that are set up by administrators to help protect everyone while my Cisco networking class is teaching me how to secure switches and routers and lock them down.
My college is a Cisco Networking Academy so I'm taking all 4 CCNA courses. I'll have enough knowledge after completing my program to write my CCNA certification test!
But being a pirate is a big factor as to that's how most users become infected. I would know since I used to be one and I was constantly getting viruses but I have came a long way and I'm learning even more in school.
I'm really excited for intercession in April to take the security course to learn about virus and malware attacks in depth!
I honestly don't even know how to find malware these days even if I tried to get infected on purpose. It boggles my mind how people manage to get so infected. Those kind of people will allow me to make a ton of money!
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In my opinion, nothing is safe. Good is always abused for bad if the risk is worth it by criminals no matter what, there's so many different ways to do something that you cannot ever know 100% of something.
Windows is not perfect, OS X is not perfect, Linux is neither perfect. Every OS has its own advantages and disadvantages, it's own weaknesses which can be exploited, blah blah.
My personal opinion is that OS X is more adapted for a general novice than Windows in terms of security because it's a bit more difficult to get used to with more password enforcement requirements, more Settings to disable things and also reboot the session, etc... Compared to Windows which is relatively extremely simple to override. A few weeks ago someone on here was trying to get assistance on how to execute an OS X malware sample because it was ignoring the restriction changes and still continuing to block the execution as OS X security knew it to be bad and that it would cause harm - on Windows it would have been a simple Windows Defender white-list exclusion which takes a few clicks, not a circus of trying different bypass restriction scripts in the console and having to reboot for each single one of them before being able to test if it was successful or not. This doesn't change the fact that OS X is not full-proof, OS X malware exists and is out there and criminals also target OS X a huge amount. If you are on the OS X security area and analyse malware for it, you'll know a lot of malware is out there for OS X.
My personal opinion is also that a Chromebook is the right choice for a novice, average user. If I don't need to be using OS X or Windows, and only need to do some browsing or something a Chromebook can handle, then the best option would be for me to use one for those tasks. It's safer that way. It likely won't always be like this though... When criminals have more interest in Chromebooks and ChromeOS, they'll be clever with it and find ways to discover its flaws and exploit them one way or another. If not through exploiting the OS itself, find ways to cause damage and gain income at the same time and apply advanced social engineering techniques to make it effective.
I recently gained an interest in OS X Internals awhile back and have been continuing my research and development/reverse engineering on it, and I can tell you right now that techniques such as code injection and the alike are all very possible. For example, on Windows you have DLL injection techniques... DLLs are Portable Executable's and thus are not supported on OS X. However, on OS X you have something called a "dylib", which stands fro "dynamic library", and you can inject these dynamic libraries into other running software... Thus being the OS X equivalent of DLL injection on Windows. Code injection on Linux? Yeah, it can be done as well just as simply.
It's all a game which runs on a timer-based interval, the aim of the game is to see how quickly someone can do it and how long you can last. Something you believed to be full-proof or secure 10 years ago is likely not the same in your opinion today. While security evolves, the criminal market and vulnerability exploitation to defeat the evolution of security also evolves. It's always the same. When I was born (literally), malicious software was being distributed on Operating System's like Windows 2000... Typically for destruction purposes specifically and not about income generation. Fast forward 10 years? Ransomware had already been introduced and the criminal market was booming by criminals who wanted to generate income instead of only cause destruction. Fast forward a few more years? Now we have ransomware prevalent in the wild like never before, lots of adware, crypto-currency mining rising on the daily basis, and network-based attacks are becoming even more severe with services being targeted in DDoS attacks with HUGE bandwidth resource reduction. At the same time? We have AV vendors moving to the hyper-visor for virtualization to try and monitor more and be more difficult to exploit in terms of monitoring scope, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning becoming even more stronger, services which help prevent DDoS attacks and the alike trying to up their game as much as possible to protect against the evolution of attackers... Oh, what's that ringing in my ear? It's the sound of criminals trying to get one step ahead because good is trying to gain an advantage over the bad they were initially doing.
If I confused you then I apologise because my example is probably not the best for this but what I am trying to say is that good vs. bad is constantly evolving and when we finally get a head start or an advantage, the bad will find a weakness in it and force us to continue upping our game. It works vice-versa. And it will never ever stop until everyone who is bad and trying to generate income from computer science with malicious intent decides to stop, which is likely never ever going to happen.
Use whatever you want to use but remember that your own actions are important. Stay cautious - using OS X over Windows doesn't make you invincible, or for any OS, however it's advisable to use an OS with less usability which provides your needs as much as possible.
Windows is not perfect, OS X is not perfect, Linux is neither perfect. Every OS has its own advantages and disadvantages, it's own weaknesses which can be exploited, blah blah.
My personal opinion is that OS X is more adapted for a general novice than Windows in terms of security because it's a bit more difficult to get used to with more password enforcement requirements, more Settings to disable things and also reboot the session, etc... Compared to Windows which is relatively extremely simple to override. A few weeks ago someone on here was trying to get assistance on how to execute an OS X malware sample because it was ignoring the restriction changes and still continuing to block the execution as OS X security knew it to be bad and that it would cause harm - on Windows it would have been a simple Windows Defender white-list exclusion which takes a few clicks, not a circus of trying different bypass restriction scripts in the console and having to reboot for each single one of them before being able to test if it was successful or not. This doesn't change the fact that OS X is not full-proof, OS X malware exists and is out there and criminals also target OS X a huge amount. If you are on the OS X security area and analyse malware for it, you'll know a lot of malware is out there for OS X.
My personal opinion is also that a Chromebook is the right choice for a novice, average user. If I don't need to be using OS X or Windows, and only need to do some browsing or something a Chromebook can handle, then the best option would be for me to use one for those tasks. It's safer that way. It likely won't always be like this though... When criminals have more interest in Chromebooks and ChromeOS, they'll be clever with it and find ways to discover its flaws and exploit them one way or another. If not through exploiting the OS itself, find ways to cause damage and gain income at the same time and apply advanced social engineering techniques to make it effective.
I recently gained an interest in OS X Internals awhile back and have been continuing my research and development/reverse engineering on it, and I can tell you right now that techniques such as code injection and the alike are all very possible. For example, on Windows you have DLL injection techniques... DLLs are Portable Executable's and thus are not supported on OS X. However, on OS X you have something called a "dylib", which stands fro "dynamic library", and you can inject these dynamic libraries into other running software... Thus being the OS X equivalent of DLL injection on Windows. Code injection on Linux? Yeah, it can be done as well just as simply.
It's all a game which runs on a timer-based interval, the aim of the game is to see how quickly someone can do it and how long you can last. Something you believed to be full-proof or secure 10 years ago is likely not the same in your opinion today. While security evolves, the criminal market and vulnerability exploitation to defeat the evolution of security also evolves. It's always the same. When I was born (literally), malicious software was being distributed on Operating System's like Windows 2000... Typically for destruction purposes specifically and not about income generation. Fast forward 10 years? Ransomware had already been introduced and the criminal market was booming by criminals who wanted to generate income instead of only cause destruction. Fast forward a few more years? Now we have ransomware prevalent in the wild like never before, lots of adware, crypto-currency mining rising on the daily basis, and network-based attacks are becoming even more severe with services being targeted in DDoS attacks with HUGE bandwidth resource reduction. At the same time? We have AV vendors moving to the hyper-visor for virtualization to try and monitor more and be more difficult to exploit in terms of monitoring scope, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning becoming even more stronger, services which help prevent DDoS attacks and the alike trying to up their game as much as possible to protect against the evolution of attackers... Oh, what's that ringing in my ear? It's the sound of criminals trying to get one step ahead because good is trying to gain an advantage over the bad they were initially doing.
If I confused you then I apologise because my example is probably not the best for this but what I am trying to say is that good vs. bad is constantly evolving and when we finally get a head start or an advantage, the bad will find a weakness in it and force us to continue upping our game. It works vice-versa. And it will never ever stop until everyone who is bad and trying to generate income from computer science with malicious intent decides to stop, which is likely never ever going to happen.
Use whatever you want to use but remember that your own actions are important. Stay cautious - using OS X over Windows doesn't make you invincible, or for any OS, however it's advisable to use an OS with less usability which provides your needs as much as possible.
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