Security flaws in Apple Macintosh

If you closely notice my last blog , you will see that I had decided at that moment of time that I would be writing about security flaws in the Apple Macintosh.I was reading about MOAB( Month Of Apple Bugs ) that day and felt I should be saying my two cents worth about this matter.

I have been quite a fan of the MACs ever since I was initiated to them in mid June , the year of 2004. I was left gaping at the slick machines when I first saw them, I just did not know how to boot the emac-G4 i had at that time.Well,time has passed, I have had the experience of coding on the MAC, using it as my personal computer and more.I now have a sprawling 20-inch Imac G5.And I like the machine,it just works !

There is a 20-inch intel Imac as well in office but I have been unsuccessful getting through my close friend and a hardcore Apple fan who is using it at the moment.I hope to buy a Macbook someday soon.

Getting back to the topic of interest,the flaw in using QuickTime 7.1.3 when using its rtsp handler to cause a stack based buffer overflow easily, officially kicked off the Month Of Apple Bugs, now better known and famous as MOAB.Its widely touted that earlier versions of QuickTime might also be vulnerable.

For me as a MAC user and quite a loyalist , the flaw was besides the point.At many discussions with a bunch of close friends in office who have access to MACs and windows alike , we always used to argue that although the MACs are a secure set of machines with a robust underlying OS, it was just a matter of time that these machines would be targetted as well.The only reason we concluded that might have been discouraging “hackers” to do so was the narrow reach and appeal of the MACs to the masses.

The Apple MACs have a meagre 2% share of the burgeoning PC market and there is ,as I see it, no incentive whatsoever for hackers to hack into the MACs apart from self gratification that is.

Now though the situation is slowly but surely changing and it only makes me happy.With Apple’s earnings increasing every quarter,much of which unquestionably comes from their foray into the digital entertainment arena viz the Ipod and Itunes store, the MACs increasingly are forming quite a sales number.As a personal experience I have been seeing more and more people getting to hear about these beautifully engineered MACs..

With all their MAC product lines successfully undergoing the transition to Intel chips, Bootcamp software enabling users to install Windows XP on their MACs the bygone year 2006 was a good one for Apple and there is no doubt any small that the MAC sales are picking up and generating quite an interest.All this hype surrouding the MOAB and the bugs themselves just reinforce this and reinforce strongly.

What is now being heralded as Apple’s best operating system , The Leopard, due to be released mid this year, i.e. 2007 only makes the situation all the more enticing.With the Macworld Expo a few days away, I am waiting eagerly to see what is announced next about Leopard.

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