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TarPit Coder
Citizen
Username: Tarpitcoder
Post Number: 63
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 3:01 pm: | 
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Interesting read:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Mac_OS_X_hacked_in_less_than_30_minute s/0,2000061744,39241748,00.htm
I wonder how long an OSX box survives if connected naked (no firewall) to a typical home broadband connection.
Gotta be better than XP outta the box - it gets cracked in seconds...
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monster
Supporter
Username: Monster
Post Number: 2357
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 5:34 pm: |
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So far they survive pretty well, I've known of many people who just connect their Mac up to broadband and haven't suffered.
In the article it states that the Mac had various Remote Services activated, which by default are turned off, and most people don't use.
I'm wondering just how well they attempted to secure the Mac to begin with.
Let's visit his site, http://rm-my-mac.wideopenbsd.org.nyud.net:8090/
he did what!?
Quote:That's why I set up an LDAP server and linked it to the Macs naming and authentication services, to let people add their own account to this machine. That way, they will all be able to enjoy the beauty of Mac OS X Tiger. And, of course, get a better chance of rm'ing it!
That's it, let people make an account on the box, on purpose, no wonder....
If anyone wants to SSH into the box I set up a MOL account
User: MOL
Pass: M0L3rr3L0M
SSH to: rm-my-Mac.WideOpenBSD.ORG
I'll try later, right now I think I'll go wash dishes. |
TarPit Coder
Citizen
Username: Tarpitcoder
Post Number: 64
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 8:26 am: |
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Monster,
Yeah I found it kinda funny what he did, but to be fair the whole idea of these systems is that you can run all kinds of stuff as a user and not root the box.
Wonder how the below would do...
NT/XP/Vista
OSX
VMS
Various BSD
Solaris 8,9,10
I suspect VMS would do well.
--Tarp |
AlleyGater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1233
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 9:39 am: |
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I mentioned recently (in another thread) how Apple (like the Mozilla team) steps up when a security breach is found and that they fix it ASAP. I think I might have over stated that. My friend who's living is made on being an expert on the Mac platform (and is certified by Apple to the highest level) and whom I trust had this to say after I sent him to that site:
Quote:Ugh. This is one of the surest ways for Apple to EFF up the platform they've put so much work into. Apple patches security problems in their own time, without proper documentation of the issues and fixes. They don't even deign to respond to people who discover exploits and report them confidentially. After silence and inaction, eventually these people make their findings public; Apple must be coerced into doing the right thing. I recall hearing several such reports in the past year or so. Like Microsoft, they are motivated to protect their brand from bad press--and they are willing to disadvantage their customers to do it.
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 12760
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 11:06 am: |
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Alleygater, I believe that's how the BUGTRAQ and NTBUGTRAQ mailing lists work. They notify the vendor of a vulnerability and expect a response and a fix (or workaround) within a finite length of time. After that time, the mailing list publishes the vulnerability, with the vendor's response, if there is one. Microsoft seems to have understood the advantage to playing by these rules recently, which means NTBUGTRAQ has done a very good thing to make them more honest. Maybe Apple just needs some time to catch up and learn the rules of the game and the advantages of playing them. They're likely to be behind because they have not been in much "security" spotlight until now.
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TarPit Coder
Citizen
Username: Tarpitcoder
Post Number: 65
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 5:02 pm: |
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It's a brutal truth that you need a security focussed team ready to address these sorts of exploits immediately.
I wonder how many Mac users out there are running older copies of the OS. I wonder this because at some point we are going to have a zero-day exploit unleashed with a worm that takes-out piles of fully patched up to date machines (I'm mostly thinking of XP/2000/2003 here).
It won't be a pretty day - and it's a really *strong* reason for diversity of platforms. I'd even make the argument that if your platform is the least bit mission-critical (who's business isn't dependent on IT nowadays...) the CIO who chooses an environment which is already in the crosshairs should be asked to do a risk assessment.
Actually - if I was running truely mission critical infrastructure I'd seriously consider something like QNX, or hell even something as diverse as OS-9.
Too often I've heard arguments made for 'getting with the most common platform' which were not based on sound engineering reasoning.
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