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Bruce · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject: Macs can get worms too

Howdy Mac brethern and sisteren,

I've heard it can happen and now I've seen it. My sister who is a production manager for national commercial productions had virus/worm attack her Mac laptop in the middle of a big shoot the other day. What a mess. It screwed up all kinds of critical files. She managed to pass it to another Mac too by giving a file to someone on a USB memory stick.

This was my warning to get serious about an anti-viral program for my Mac (I got Norton...and I'm clean).

Norton also cleaned things up on those other Macs but my sister is finding all kinds of Excel files are all screwed up.

Have fun Mac fans,

B
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TC · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:45 pm Post subject:

Interesting. Did it screw up all kinds of files, or was it only Microsoft Office-related files?

I've gotten infected Word files before. Apparently people can create malicious Office macros that will infect a Mac. One way to combat it is to set the preference that forces Word and Excel to warn you before opening a file that contains a macro. Doesn't help after the fact, as I learned. But I always keep that preference set now.

Deirdre · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject:

My Mac guy said:

Donovan · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:49 pm Post subject:

oh boy, I guess the new Mac vs. Windows commercial is in production...

"Thanks a lot for the virus, buddy. Why don't you try updating your stuff before you give it to me. That's messed up man...and to think, I trusted you."

"My bad."
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TheVoiceOfBob · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:00 pm Post subject:

Another reason why all our Mac-heads on campus run their Office applications through my Citrix farm. They work better, and they don't have to worry about viruses. Just the Administrator does. (me)
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Yoda117 · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 10:27 pm Post subject:

Bruce · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:13 am Post subject:

It looks like it came through something in the Microsoft Office suite and she had not been updating her Office software. Big lessons learned there I hope.

For those who love this info, it was a "w97m.satt.A" worm, an oldie but goodie that can strike PC's as well as Macs. No permanent damage, but can make life hell until it gets all cleaned up.

B
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I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

TheVoiceOfBob · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:19 am Post subject:

Many times they don't do any real damage to the Macs, but they are carriers that pass along the virus to other computers.

Typhoid iMac.
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Yoda117 · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:00 am Post subject:

yeah, but Bob, you gotta remember...

it depends on what the "value added feature" actually does.

In many cases, they're designed to tie up network resources (epecially in the case of a worm). To that extent, if the worm is on your system odds are it can do some kind of damage.
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TheVoiceOfBob · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:22 am Post subject:

Yoda,
Oh agreed most definitely. I didn't mean to make it sound like it won't, I'm just relating what we have seen on campus. We are always a hotbed for attacks. Huge University pipes with minimal restrictions. (academic freedoms, can't stop those professors from surfing "any" site they wish)

Most people don't realize that a majority of the attacks are created from backwards engineering patches. Many times the holes are only discovered when they put out the patch to fix them! Then the people with nothing better to do than cause problems reverse engineer the patch, find the hole and have a time with all those systems that people don't bother updating. The time between patch and exploit continues to shrink as well.
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Try to imagine a world where there is no such thing as hypothetical situations.

The Voice of Bob

Yoda117 · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:42 am Post subject:

yeah the mean time between discovering an attack vector and actually seeing it in the wild has been decreasing since the mid 90s, when this information first became publically available.

I am surprised that you're not having more of an issue with bots considering the network environment that you're in. Seems like a great breeding ground for a half-decent FTP botnet.

I for one am glad that most people are wrong as to how these things come about. I don't know how long I'd survive with a bunch of zero-day attacks constantly coming to light (July 2002 anyone...?)
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Voiceovers by Gregory Houser
Philadelphia based Voice Actor

Blog - A man, a martini, and a lot of microphones