Apple, Security And The Power Of Perception

Is Apple’s customer-base rejoining the rest of us on the firing line? Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen increasing interest from the bad guys in the potential of Mac users as a source of illicit income, using various kinds of malware including Mac rootkits, Mac versions of DNS Changer Trojans like OSX/Jahlav, fake codecs, and even OS X-specific fake AV, while issues with jailbroken iPhones have highlighted some shortcomings of the whitelisting model.

A recent survey carried out on behalf of the “Securing our eCity” community initiative, however, suggested that Mac and, indeed, PC users continue to see the Mac as a safe haven, while Apple seems to think that it has no security problem.

This presentation will compare the view from Apple and the general community with the view from the anti-virus labs, examining the ways in which the blackhats are looking towards the Mac-using community as a source of illegitimate profit, and estimating the likely impact of worms (and other malware) in the Apple over the next year or two.