New Botnet Is "Practically Indestructible"
- Thread starter Earnest Cavalli
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Macs are indeed capable of virii, and being hacked. That said:
1. There are no true 'in the wild' mac virii... yet [http://philiped.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-are-there-no-mac-viruses.html]. (That article is a bit old, but it illustrates the point well. If one has emerged, let me know!) There are trojans out, though.
2. This I'm not 100% on, but I don't think this bot-net can infect Mac. Yes, they have a MBR as well, but it's a different one. Again, happy to be told otherwise so I may commence panicking.
3. Macs are unlikely to ever have as many virii as PC. This isn't due to any innate superiority. It's due to market share: Why spend that time making a virus to hit a 10th of as many people as you could writing for Windows?
I own a mac. I like it. But I have anti-virus software running on it. It's not invulnerable.
1. There are no true 'in the wild' mac virii... yet [http://philiped.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-are-there-no-mac-viruses.html]. (That article is a bit old, but it illustrates the point well. If one has emerged, let me know!) There are trojans out, though.
2. This I'm not 100% on, but I don't think this bot-net can infect Mac. Yes, they have a MBR as well, but it's a different one. Again, happy to be told otherwise so I may commence panicking.
3. Macs are unlikely to ever have as many virii as PC. This isn't due to any innate superiority. It's due to market share: Why spend that time making a virus to hit a 10th of as many people as you could writing for Windows?
I own a mac. I like it. But I have anti-virus software running on it. It's not invulnerable.
I've used a mac for almost 10 years, and know them inside out...but there are TONNES of people who just buy them these days and think they're invincible! Not sure where this delusion came from...human error (downloading viruses, malware and letting them install) will fuck up your comp everytime, whether PC or MacThe Lugz said:i love how mac owners believe that, it makes me smilePlatypus540 said:
you realize pc users get as few viruses as you do, right?
i've never had one on 6 pc's ive owned because i'm not stupid enough to click on anything that's obviously dodgy
would you like a list of some mac viruses?
enjoy:
http://www.iantivirus.com/threats/
but macs don't have viruses!! give me a break >.>
No shit, anything is hackable. "Macs get malware too" wtf? Of course people make malicious software for mac. The advantage of having a mac is the difficulty of creating a virus for it. I love how you are still defending windows on the comments section of a news article about an indestructible botnet for windows.. sad sad sad... I would try to point out how much important information is stored on macs... But I have explained this so much it is not even funny, and I don't think people like you will be ever truly convinced.Ultratwinkie said:
On the one hand, If I've got this viruses will never fuck me up... on the other hand, the trade off is slightly slower internet. Ah, I'll live.
I have Linux, therefore I am fine. Even if it would infect, I change distros semi often so it wouldn't be doing bad deeds for long.
I heard an interesting report recently about a group that, instead of trying to follow the data, followed the money. They got hundreds of VISA numbers and such for purposes of research, and basically bought all the Viagra, antivirus software, etc that these things are trying to sell you. Then they traced the money.
What they found was that it all bottlenecks at these handful of banks in developing countries like India. They concluded a better approach to fighting this kind of shit would be to shut down the banks. It's easy to rewrite code, move to a new location, what have you. It's a lot more difficult to find a financial institution capable of handling these transactions (money wires, VISA, etc) and shady enough to launder your money for you.
What they found was that it all bottlenecks at these handful of banks in developing countries like India. They concluded a better approach to fighting this kind of shit would be to shut down the banks. It's easy to rewrite code, move to a new location, what have you. It's a lot more difficult to find a financial institution capable of handling these transactions (money wires, VISA, etc) and shady enough to launder your money for you.
Um, y'see, it's Microsoft's customers getting the short end here. Not even "fans," we're talking companies that employ the use of Windows as a platform. And since it actually attacks the computer itself, and not Windows as an operating system, it's not even a Microsoft thing anyway. Anyone who owns a desktop PC connected to the internet is at risk here.brainslurper said:
Your gloating is misdirected. And if it was directed correctly you'd come off as even more of an asshole.
Cyber-terrorists aren't made up exclusively of 4chan users, y'know. As others have said before, this is more akin to corporate espionage than malicious "for the lulz" hobbyist activities.bjj hero said:
I'd be worried if that's what formatting actually meant. But since formatting actually means wiping the entire drive clean so that there is absolutely nothing on it, it seems to me that this thing is quite easily destructible. Not to mention all the other ways to kill such things that try to hide in the master boot record.
But yeah, doing a system restore, which is what the thing that restores Windows to its basic, default state is actually called, would not kill it. The only thing that makes this even remotely scary is that these days, the people who could kill it with no problem are smart enough to not get it on their computer in the first place, whereas all the people who would have no idea how to kill it are the ones who are going to be downloading it in the first place.
It is clever how it sabotages other malware though. Now if only someone would write something that easily goes after Macs without any antivirus protection, so all the "I have a Mac and thus am invincible herp derp" people in the world can learn to stop spouting off Apple's inaccurate ad campaigns like they're so much smarter than everyone who uses Windows because they got a Mac every time news about some new virus or other such nasty thing crops up.
And I don't want to be too mean. Don't make a virus that wipes their data or steals their bank info or anything. Just make the virus pop up a window that plays Never Gonna Give You Up and says "How do you like your 'invincible' Mac now? Better get some anti-virus software and stop acting like you're awesome on the Internet because of your choice in operating systems." every 5 minutes until they install an anti-virus program that removes it.
But yeah, doing a system restore, which is what the thing that restores Windows to its basic, default state is actually called, would not kill it. The only thing that makes this even remotely scary is that these days, the people who could kill it with no problem are smart enough to not get it on their computer in the first place, whereas all the people who would have no idea how to kill it are the ones who are going to be downloading it in the first place.
It is clever how it sabotages other malware though. Now if only someone would write something that easily goes after Macs without any antivirus protection, so all the "I have a Mac and thus am invincible herp derp" people in the world can learn to stop spouting off Apple's inaccurate ad campaigns like they're so much smarter than everyone who uses Windows because they got a Mac every time news about some new virus or other such nasty thing crops up.
And I don't want to be too mean. Don't make a virus that wipes their data or steals their bank info or anything. Just make the virus pop up a window that plays Never Gonna Give You Up and says "How do you like your 'invincible' Mac now? Better get some anti-virus software and stop acting like you're awesome on the Internet because of your choice in operating systems." every 5 minutes until they install an anti-virus program that removes it.
Boot sector viruses are also an old classic from the floppy era. I'm guessing this thing actually injects into the windows bootloader, which technically doesn't make it a proper boot virus, and while that is pretty neat, it's not really all that technically amazing. That's how most cracks for Windows work -- I'm guessing it's also going to be more difficult detecting and removing this thing from "non-genuine" Windows installations.
If it really is a boot virus, you can easily avoid this by using another bootloader, like lilo or grub (usually found on linux/bsd systems, but boots windows just fine).
If it really is a boot virus, you can easily avoid this by using another bootloader, like lilo or grub (usually found on linux/bsd systems, but boots windows just fine).
As far as I can remember a standard format will not remove your MBR. There are ways to re-write it with the console commands when you boot into repair options from the disc however.
To be completely sure though, I would personally recommend a full zero/one write pass done with the drive manufacturers own program, followed by a format with the /u switch. I'm assuming this devious bot doesn't hide in RAM so it can re-write itself, but that's easy enough to counter anyway, just turn your machine off completely at the end of the format. If you wanna be ultra paranoia sure, do it multiple times
Granted that's not exactly a standard user process, you'll need a little experience with these things, but it's not too hard either.
I like this bot, it's got character lol
To be completely sure though, I would personally recommend a full zero/one write pass done with the drive manufacturers own program, followed by a format with the /u switch. I'm assuming this devious bot doesn't hide in RAM so it can re-write itself, but that's easy enough to counter anyway, just turn your machine off completely at the end of the format. If you wanna be ultra paranoia sure, do it multiple times
Granted that's not exactly a standard user process, you'll need a little experience with these things, but it's not too hard either.
I like this bot, it's got character lol
Thank you for posting this and thereby indirectly notifying me that Volume 2 was out.ThreeKneeNick said:
On Topic: It's piss easy to blow away and rebuild a hard drive's boot record, I keep a handy little utility for doing just that on my flash stick (infrequent issues with whole disk encryption software and imaging = need to blow that away sometimes so I can bring back a backup of an encrypted computer and get it to actually boot long enough to repair the encryption that it's looking for and not finding). Would your average user ever think to try that? Probably not, but that is not "practically indestructible", just really really annoying.