Re:The new MacBook
by mslot on Monday March 09, 2015 @04:37PM
(#9173858)
I just had one of my first exposures to OS X, helping a friend get rid of particularly nasty adware called Downlite. It was nastier than anything I've ever seen since Windows 98, and obviously I've never seen anything like it on Linux. Stunning, really. I'm still considering getting my first Macbook though after this announcement, so I do hope they'll build a better security model.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
For it to be nasty and hard to get rid of, your friend must have given it admin access when he installed it? No security model that I'm aware of can stop that; OS X out of the box stops you from being able to run unsigned code, which would've stopped that entirely.
Windows also prevents untrusted code from running as an admin user by default. As you say, the user clicked "Allow"; there's nothing that could prevent that except changing the mindset of the general end user.
Actually that user probably did more than "Allow". Apps non signed by Apple are prevented to launch entirely on the default config. You have to go disable that protection in system preferences or right shift to launch the app, to go around this. So you really need an extra step and also need to know what you're doing
The only security model that can stop that kind of malware is to only allow software from the App Store (i.e., the iOS model).