The local evening news had a special virus warning tonight. Not especially unusual – they occasionally warn people about a Big Windows Virus that went around the week before. But Nirmala began the segment “This is the first virus to infect Apple’s Oh Ess Ecks… It’s spread through the ‘I-Chat’ instant messaging application… Be sure antivirus software is installed and up to date…” (I-Chat was in big letters on the side of the screen)
OK. So, first of all, I’m screaming at the TV “IT’S NOT A VIRUS, YOU MORONS! IT’S PRONOUNCED ‘TEN’ – YOU MORONS! That’s ‘iChat’ – YOU MORONS!”
Second of all, it’s not a virus. It’s an archive of an application, disguised as a jpeg (by cleverly using the super secret hacker technique of employing command+v to trick Mac Oh Ess Ecks users into infecting their systems). It’s not spread BY iChat – some schmoe may send a file that way, but if you’re stupid enough to double-click an unexpected file sent to you via IM, well, Darwin is at work… It’s not as though simply viewing a jpg image in a browser would infect your Mac, unlike some other systems out there. You actually have to explicitly accept the download, expand the archive, double-click the application, and provide your username and password before any damage can be done.
I know it’s a bunch of silly nits to pick, but I can already hear the mouthbreathers spouting off “so, did your Mac get hit by that IChat virus?” I wonder, if this is how lax they are about checking facts related to “virus” outbreaks, what else is slipping past them?
The local evening news had a special virus warning tonight. Not especially unusual – they occasionally warn people about a Big Windows Virus that went around the week before. But Nirmala began the segment “This is the first virus to infect Apple’s Oh Ess Ecks… It’s spread through the ‘I-Chat’ instant messaging application… Be sure antivirus software is installed and up to date…” (I-Chat was in big letters on the side of the screen)
OK. So, first of all, I’m screaming at the TV “IT’S NOT A VIRUS, YOU MORONS! IT’S PRONOUNCED ‘TEN’ – YOU MORONS! That’s ‘iChat’ – YOU MORONS!”
Second of all, it’s not a virus. It’s an archive of an application, disguised as a jpeg (by cleverly using the super secret hacker technique of employing command+v to trick Mac Oh Ess Ecks users into infecting their systems). It’s not spread BY iChat – some schmoe may send a file that way, but if you’re stupid enough to double-click an unexpected file sent to you via IM, well, Darwin is at work… It’s not as though simply viewing a jpg image in a browser would infect your Mac, unlike some other systems out there. You actually have to explicitly accept the download, expand the archive, double-click the application, and provide your username and password before any damage can be done.
I know it’s a bunch of silly nits to pick, but I can already hear the mouthbreathers spouting off “so, did your Mac get hit by that IChat virus?” I wonder, if this is how lax they are about checking facts related to “virus” outbreaks, what else is slipping past them?
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Nope, not a virus.
It’s a trojan that relies completely on ‘social engineering’ to infect and is kind of buggy so it doesn’t even do that very well.
But the media attention may be an OK thing to have around. Many Mac users are very complacent when it come to security. Most are accustomed to entering their admin password at the drop of a hat – or at least without thinking when asked (poorly written installers may account for a lot of that) so getting them to think twice may be a good thing.
We’re not going to get the kind of worm infections that hammer Windows users, just because the automatic vectors for infection aren’t there. But eventually there will be one of these ‘proof of concepts’ that nails the social engineering thing and can do some real damage. It wouldn’t hurt to have the average Mac user be a little more cautious before that happens.
it most certainly is a virus… it is a companion infector… it replaces existing applications with copies of itself and saves the originals so that they can be executed after the virus when you try to run those infected applications…
Hi,
I just wonder about latest virus, which effectively shut down all online activity of Chase Manhattan Bank.
How this will affect us in general?
Thanks
it is a virus and it will get you