RE: Moving to Mac

["Chuck Lewis" <clewis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Well I am MORE than aware of all the problems with PC's but didn't want you
to think that the Mac was immune from that. I sort of thought it was to a
degree until this post this morning on the Dshield list (with some VERY
heavy hitters in the security field):

RE: [Dshield] Spyware and Unlikely Targets      

Does your MAC verify using CERTs that it is
communicating with Apple and do an MD5 sum to verify
that the patch isn't 'r00ted'?

Forgive me as I don't know the MAC platform that well.
Just got done reading "Stealing the Network: How To
Own a Continent" - pretty detailed attack on a MAC -
Chapter 4 authored by Jay Beale. References
SecurityFocus advisory 6004. http://www.securityfocus.com/advisories/6004 
Mac OS X Systemic Insecure File Permissions 

It is fixed in a subsequent patch, but how many are
"secure" in their OS choice that they patch regularly?
This one is particularly nasty and 

I was speaking with a large client that received a
RIAA subpoena. They traced the IP to a large "printer"
that had been rooted and had a popular file sharing
utility installed. "Nobody" looks at printers, but the
larger ones come with hard drives - BIG hard drives
(Not pumping Syngress but the first book in the series discusses how to 0wn
a HP printer.

People that don't want to be found are not going to
target "popular" systems. They leverage the noise
created by those attacks - like a magician with a
diversion - to keep you focused where they want you
focused.

> Mark

PS: The vulnerability mentioned above shows Apple's
learning curve with *nix. 

>From SecurityFocus
Many applications are installed onto Mac OS X systems
with insecure file permissions.  This is due to two
distinct classes of problems:

     1) a security issue regarding DMG files managed
by Mac OS X 
     2) insecure file permissions packaged by
different vendors

The result is that many of the files and directories
that compose various applications are globally
writable.  This allows attackers with filesystem
access to an OS X machine can replace binaries and
obtain additional privileges from unsuspecting users,
who may run the replaced version of the binary.

How many files on your system are "777"? :)