Firefox has "Unfixable" Flaw - Page 2 - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Barnes · 10-02-2006, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MattyK

And it certainly has an effect on the number of viruses. Like it's been said before...what is a malicious person going to do? Write a virus for a widespread OS, or one for an OS with a 5% market share (or less?).

Are we not discussing an exploit of a product that enjoys only a +/-10% marketshare or is the threshold 6% or greater?

You don't think that said malicious people, always seeking to go down in infamy would love to cause havoc in the world of stable, secure OSes? Or could it be possible that they truely are more secure?

Flash Walken · 10-02-2006, 05:18 PM

You should all be using Opera anyway.

Hack&Lube · 10-03-2006, 02:09 AM

Opera rules, as I'll demonstrate with this utterly useless chart!

Security through obscurity! And i do love Opera, just needs a few tweaks out of the download box and it's perfect and i don't know...Europeany. Firebox is just a freaking mess, i can't stand it or it's ubiquitousnous.

photon · 10-03-2006, 10:03 AM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061003-7885.html

Looks like this wasn't quite true.

SeeGeeWhy · 10-03-2006, 10:33 AM

The open source nature of firefox gives it a chance to address these flaws. Version 3.0 baby.

I-Hate-Hulse · 10-03-2006, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barnes

You don't think that said malicious people, always seeking to go down in infamy would love to cause havoc in the world of stable, secure OSes? Or could it be possible that they truely are more secure?

It would seem that while OSX certainly enjoys security advantages, your 1st statement is true.

more people are taking OS X's security seriously and actively looking for vulnerabilities so that Apple can patch them. This was, ironically, predicted by Symantec in a much reviled security review paper back in 2005. In that Internet Security Threat Report, Symantec predicted that as Mac OS X becomes more popular, there will be more people looking for vulnerabilities in that OS (for good and ill), and so of course there will be an upswing in the number of vulnerabilities found. That's what you're seeing today.

Taken from a good article on the state of OSX security.

http://www.informationweek.com/hardw...ntosh+Platform

Barnes · 10-03-2006, 11:21 AM

Taken from the same article:

"Vulnerabilities are not exploits. They're potential avenues for exploits, which is why it's critical that you keep your system up to date. The truth is, all the malware for Mac OS X thus far has been rather lame, and not much of a danger to anyone who practices a few common-sense steps. The real threats in the Mac world are complacency and foolish behavior on the part of users."

In order to execute malicious code you would have to download it, agree that you realize it is an application or executable BEFORE it is competely downloaded, launch the installer from the saved location and enter an Admin password. If it is an execituable that has no installer, it would promt you that this has never been run before, are you sure you want to run it. If you still amnage to get burned, you probably deserved it. Or if your dumb enough to log on as root user.

Glad to hear the threat was a little overblown. I will give Opera another shot this afternoon. It's been awhile.

calculoso · 10-03-2006, 11:40 AM

Nice little hoax by a couple of punks...

(from CNET news story)

RedHot25 · 10-03-2006, 01:25 PM

I have no CLUE about computers/browsers/etc. I just noticed this on the news, and thought Apple people might not like it...

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...aw-061003.html

Flames0910 · 10-03-2006, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

It would seem that while OSX certainly enjoys security advantages, your 1st statement is true.

more people are taking OS X's security seriously and actively looking for vulnerabilities so that Apple can patch them. This was, ironically, predicted by Symantec in a much reviled security review paper back in 2005. In that Internet Security Threat Report, Symantec predicted that as Mac OS X becomes more popular, there will be more people looking for vulnerabilities in that OS (for good and ill), and so of course there will be an upswing in the number of vulnerabilities found. That's what you're seeing today.

Taken from a good article on the state of OSX security.

http://www.informationweek.com/hardw...ntosh+Platform

Symantec puts out those same articles all the time. They're saying the same thing about Vista. Wonder why Symantec says there will be vulnerabilities. Oh right, they charge an arm and a leg for sub-par system hogging anti-virus software that has its own vulnerabilities that are targetted by virus makers. And they sell it for both OS X and Windows. Why somebody would buy it for os x is beyond me though....

The CBC thing is really shy on details, the only thing I could guess they are referring to is a wireless hack that was proven to be a hoax. Or it could be something I don't know about, but how would I know with that kind of detail?

red '00 · 10-03-2006, 08:48 PM

On the Internet these days, what really is secure...? I'll still take FF over Explorer any day. Possible 'risks' don't scare me, so long as they're as limited as possible