Mac Virus: The sky is falling!
Monday, February 20, 2006
So, for the second time in two years, the Mac world has been rocked by the creation of a "virus" that blows away the notion that Mac OS X is secure.
Called the Leap-A virus, this is a virus that a) breaks some of your programs if you download and run this program, and b) will try to transmit itself to your iChat friends under a very select set of circumstances. (They actually have to agree to download it, then run it themselves.)
Here's the big thing everyone should know about this Mac virus: It's a user-mode virus. It can't truly affect the system; only items the user controls (versus under the system control.) For a good explanation, read this article.
Basically, the sky isn't falling, and I'm not worried. I just love how people get up in arms for a program that you have to download & run that can break anything you have access to break... which, on a Mac, isn't a whole lot (unless you give it the administrator password.)
Called the Leap-A virus, this is a virus that a) breaks some of your programs if you download and run this program, and b) will try to transmit itself to your iChat friends under a very select set of circumstances. (They actually have to agree to download it, then run it themselves.)
Here's the big thing everyone should know about this Mac virus: It's a user-mode virus. It can't truly affect the system; only items the user controls (versus under the system control.) For a good explanation, read this article.
Basically, the sky isn't falling, and I'm not worried. I just love how people get up in arms for a program that you have to download & run that can break anything you have access to break... which, on a Mac, isn't a whole lot (unless you give it the administrator password.)
posted by Burton at 9:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home