C Stands For Crappy
CNet News.com is at it again.
In the past few weeks CNet with the help of ZDNet has published a veritable flurry of fear, uncertainty and doubt against Mac OS security. A while ago they branded as viruses a pair of malicious scripts that either exploit already fixed security issues or require user action to actually do anything.
They then claimed that a hacking contest involving a Mac thatgave out SSH accounts and had ports open (settings that a standard desktop installation connected to the Internet will not have enabled) was a valid indication of Mac OS security issues.
At least they had the spine to report D. Schroeder’s alternative hacking contest involving a Mac using default settings — i.e. ports closed and no local accounts provided.
However, CNet is now basically saying that because a malicious application can have a custom icon, such as the icon of a JPEG file, Mac OS has a fatal security problem. This “issue” of the blindly trusting user, of course, affects all modern desktop operating systems as long as they’re connected to the Internet.
