There has also been a
major upswing in the types of attacks that exploit flaws in programs that are designed to
process media files such as Apple QuickTime, iTunes, Windows Media Player,
RealNetworks RealPlayer, Macromedia Flash Player, and Nullsoft Winamp. Attackers are
widening their net for things to exploit, including mobile phones and PDAs.
Macintosh systems, which were considered to be relatively safe from attacks, had to
deal with their own share of problems with zero-day attacks during 2006. In February, a
pair of worms that targeted Mac OS X were identified in conjunction with an easily
exploitable severe security flaw. Then at Black Hat in 2006, Apple drew even more fire
when Jon Ellch and Dave Maynor demonstrated how a rootkit could be installed on an
Apple laptop by using third-party Wi-Fi cards. The vulnerability supposedly lies in the
third-party wireless card device drivers. Macintosh users did not like to hear that their
systems could potentially be vulnerable and have questioned the validity of the vulnerability.
Thus debate grows in the world of vulnerability discovery.
Mac OS X was once thought to be virtually free from flaws and vulnerabilities. But in
the wake of the 2006 pair of worms and the Wi-Fi vulnerability just discussed, that perception
could be changing.
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