[at-l] OT: building a good firewall

[gwbrown1 at gmail.com (Greg Brown)]

All that is true, and a major reason my all my home family laptops run
OS X.  But if you did not have the software firewall enabled and you
plugged straight into the Internet, or used a coffee house wi-fi
network, and you had services running, and listening, I could
potentially cause a denial-of-services attack of one variety or
another.  I also might be able to load your computer with miliatary
base diagrams and bomb making how-to files and call the FBI, or, oh,
PRINT JIBBERISH ON ALL THE PAPER IN YOUR PRINTER!!!
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a stretch, yes, but just because you run OS X doesn't mean you
can totally forget about security.

Gosh do I ever need to get away from all this stuff and decompress out
in the woods for a bit.

Greg

On 12/22/05, Kurt Cedergren <kcedergren@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 3. Software firewalls on Macs:
> >
> > Built in (as of OS X).  Because of the underlying architecture OS X is
> > less susceptible to hacks and viruses, but that doesn't mean you can
> > just forget about security and you shouldn't.
> >
>
> from http://www.technofileonline.com/texts/tec120405.html :
>
> VIRUSES AND SPYWARE: As of now (December 2005) there are no viruses or
> spyware for OS X. There are, however, a total of two dozen viruses for
> the discontinued Mac OS operating system. This is why you'll sometimes
> hear or read about "Macintosh viruses" if this important distinction
> isn't made. (A Mac OS virus can't infect a computer running Mac OS X.)
>    No one has yet reported spyware for either version of the Macintosh
> operating system.
>    Sophos, an antivirus firm, has counted 103,000 active Windows
> viruses. Spyware totals are unknown, but the math is frightening.
> Symantec, one of the most respected researchers in this field,
> estimates that each day 30,000 more Windows PCs are infected by
> zombies -- virus-like invaders that hijack a PC and turn it into a
> spyware and spam relay during the night. There are no known zombies
> for Mac OS X computers.
>    What will happen if the bad guys start targeting OS X? Not much.
> Unlike Windows, Mac OS X does not allow programs to take over central
> operations of the computer, nor does it let a program (or even a user)
> install new software without express permission.
>    So anything that sneaks into an Apple OS X Macintosh would have to
> convince the user to type the "admin" password before it could install
> malicious software. If this happened, an OS X invader would then have
> to overcome the protections built into Unix and disable the OS X
> firewall before it could cause problems or report home -- a scenario
> that's unlikely at best.
>
> Onestep
>