US Army adds MACs as security protection
The Army’s Apple program to bring more Macs into military facilities is being led by Jonathan Broskey, a former Apple employee who says it’s not just that Macs are a less inviting target than Windows; Apple’s version of Unix is inherently more secure than Windows, he says. Some observers, however, are taking issue with that assessment. One of Apple’s major marketing themes is that Macs are less susceptible to viruses, Trojans, and other hacker attacks than Windows PCs. While that argument has yet to hold much sway with enterprise I.T. departments, it is causing the U.S. Army to add some Macs to its networks. Lt. Col. C.J. Wallington, a division chief in the Army’s office of enterprise information systems, told Forbes that the Army is adding Macs to make its networks harder to hack. Wallington said that making networks more heterogeneous might make it more difficult for attackers to compromise an entire group of computers.
One key barrier — besides Apple’s price premium and the general I.T. resistance to Apple — has been incompatibility with Common Access Cards, a security key card program the military uses heavily. Early in 2008, the Army will adopt software that will allow Macs to use CACs. At least one security expert isn’t all that impressed with the Mac as a battle-hardened OS. Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators said Apple had to patch security flaws five times as much as Microsoft. “I love my Macs, but in terms of security, they’re behind the curve, compared to Windows,” Miller told Forbes. Miller added that the Army needs a better security strategy than just adding Macs to the mix. He said attackers will just target whichever platform is weaker, which might just be the Macs that are supposedly more secure.
Source: SciTech Today
Comments(41)
Just realised that ipod company also make computers!
i agree. Macs are more effective (Paper Weights)
Get a Mac, Get a Door-Stop.
Merry Christmas (If U Got a PC)
ost
merry christmas greece ioannina
soy el cuarto, viva Mac
i got mac at home,but since i like gaming im gonna stick with pc
PC is like a lady, you have to threat her right
“One of Apple’s major marketing themes is that Macs are less susceptible to viruses, Trojans, and other hacker attacks than Windows PCs.”
this is just because hackers don’t do enough efforts to penetrate these computers.. maybe (not even) 10% of all computer users has a mac, so you reach more ‘public’ when writing spyware for pc.
Yeah, hackers know their way around their Windows, not some random mac.
So a hacker knowns how to brake open a Windows system, but when it comes to mac it is slightly more tricky. They have to stop, wait and a think for a second – THEN break it open.
Lol…
Anyone know what is up with all the MACS in all the new movies? The Invasion, the main character (nicole kidman) uses one. Zero Day, theres one there… They are everywhere! I think I saw one in I Am Legend, I hope I didn’t… It is starting to anger me a bit.
What is M’soft too lazy to market their OS’ in new movies these days?
Apple seems to do more campaigning then microsoft these days with their “technology” but it doesn’t seem to be helping to much does it. Apple only controls a small margin of computer sales.
I don’t remember seeing the mac in I am legend but then again I downloaded the cam version and couldn’t tell the difference between a lot of things
lol, if they want more secure why don’t they move to a Linux platform??
Mac’s are mainly great for Graphic Design, Music Editing, and software like that.
Mac != MAC, please correct the title
Why don’t they use Linux instead like the Europe Union.
Linux = Free + secure + open source.
Of course they need to employee some of the Linux geeks to customize it.
in that way the Bill Gates became richiest man in world
@8 in I am Legend, there were 2 Macs,there was one iMac in his lab and a MacBook pro with himself looool
Mac Rocks
didnt like the movie that much though
It’s plain to see none of you have even used a Mac
I read the other day that the newest mac OS has more security vulnerabilities this MS XP and Vista.. So this is pretty stupid on the armies part.
Its called Macs, not MACS.
Macs are in movies because Steve Jobs has a vision to make money off of you, sucker.
Macs run BSD Unix underneath it’s interface so right there it’s ten times more secure than Windows. As a programmer Windows is the biggest bloated pig – there’s still a ton of Windows 3.1 code under there. You don’t actually think they start from scratch do you? So the next version of Windows will have Vista under it, just like Vista has XP and 2000 and NT4, etc below it. Now you know why it’s memory requirements double each new version of Windows. That saying MS fixed a flaw this year that goes back to Windows 3 in it’s code. So basically Windows is a superset of previous versions, that means they have to worry about flaws in multiple Windows for each version. That doesn’t sound very secure as a concept. But they have good games so that’s enough for some.
Steve Jobs make money cause we download his movies? Cool!
P2P ftw!
As far as the deal with macs being more secure because their aren’t as many, well, that is not exactly true.. macs are based on BSD, so anyone coming in is going to be greeted with essentially a Linux interface.. So, if you can hack Linux, you can hack Mac. The reason Macs are so secure is because of that BSD kernel siting under the hood, you aren’t doing crap without a root password, well, they operate like ubuntu, all SUDO.
I just look at a mac as another unix distro, which is exactly what it is. So, Security is the same as any BSD machine.
@22
Exactly. It is possible to hack Macs, they aren’t perfect. However, it is significantly harder due the fact that one, it runs BSD, and two, the fairly low number of people using Macs means less code is developed to hack them because it’s not efficient to spend time making code that only works on a few people. That being said, I don’t know how much this will help the army, but at least it’s probably better than using a bunch of Windoze computers with all that 3.1 code in them. Just my 2 cents.
@7 about why macs are in movies… (see #9)
they’re always handy because the rich producers and editors use the macs for editing, so they always have some handy.
and for everyone else, i don’t care WHY my Macbook doesn’t get infested with junk whenever i look at pr0ns. all i care is that no one is stealing my paypal pass, which no one is. sure, if macs catch on and get the majority, it’s over. then i’ll switch to the newest underdog, or bite it and move to OSS.
having a *NIX terminal handy is pretty sweet too.
as for total security? i’d rather trust a kernal that’s been in development for over 30 years. MS kernal is super bloated and needs restarts all the time. my old G5 (1.6 ghz of raw power) only gets restarted when software install or updates require it… otherwise it runs 24/7. record uptime is 144 days (because i ignored several security updates in a row… and my money didn’t get stolen even on an unpatched system… my mac is safer than windows, don’t care why, just care that it is.
The Government really should be running their own breed of Linux. People have the wrong idea that if everyone used it then there would be just as many hacks, back doors and junkware as Windows. I really don’t think this is true, I think it’s better built for security from the ground up. Just look at how many programs we get for windows on RLSlog that are ment to fix and maintain windows; it’s sad.
OSC You are in a leage of you own exactly what i was going to say, the military isn’t a battleground for computer technology, you house is, they should be running an advanced version of linix with powerful firewalls and security. And you have a point, but the truth is that MAC’s realy arent powerful computers with a wide variety of programs, they and moderate powered computer that need way more ram then windows (btw) and run a lot less programs, are getting more popular, and the very easy simple unix code will a a piece of cake for hackers once mac’s start getting more popular, their is probably a ton of hacks out their for it, but most hackers arent releasing them so they wont get fixed, you knwo what i mean
The Government really should be running their own breed of Linux. People have the wrong idea that if everyone used it then there would be just as many hacks, back doors and junkware as Windows. I really don’t think this is true, I think it’s better built for security from the ground up. Just look at how many programs we get for windows on RLSlog that are ment to fix and maintain windows; it’s sad.
At least this will put more focus on Macs and the virus writers might stop targeting Windows so much…
@25
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux
use freebsd you idiots !
I agree with #11
I thought this was related to MAC, and not to Apple Mac computers.
.-
just to be a little picky, in “I Am Legend” It wasn’t an iMac but in stead just a 23″ HD display hooked up to 6 re-dudent drives plus a Mac Pro if you look at it on the counter-top there is 1-2 of them. also the Mac Book Pro. but yea everywhere I look they are in movies or commercials. I guess because of the sleek look of them.
I’m really surprised that with the amount of money the US government wastes on stupid stuff ($2,000 toilet seat anyone?) that they haven’t hired someone to write a custom OS for them. Not only could it be customized to do exactly what they need, it would almost certainly be classified, so hackers would have nothing to study in order to learn of security flaws.
Average flaws per month:
XP: 2.83
Vista: 1.67
Mac OS X: 20.25
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758
Macs are everywhere in movies because Apple pays for them to be there. That is the only reason. As far as security is concerned, if a hacker really wants in to a computer network he will get in to it. It really doesn’t matter what OS you are running. People have been hacking into computers long before either Windows or Mac systems existed. And they will be hacking into them no matter what future OS anyone comes up with.
Quote – He said attackers will just target whichever platform is weaker, which might just be the Macs that are supposedly more secure.
Now thats not true. Haha. Attackers will just target whichever platform is more popular. If Macs are in homes as much as PCs are and if people use OSX as main preference… Then people will start focusing on hacking Macs instead of finding flaws in Windows.
Any thing man made is breakable by man. Just depends on how hard you look, and how much time you are willing to put into looking for the hax. If there is more people using Macs then eventually if Macs become more popular than windows…. then Macs will become more and more vulnerable.
Haha Mac users should start swearing at Miller who made this decision… since he is promoting the use of Macs. Since if macs get more popular then more people will hack. Which means you should start swearing at Miller cuz more hacks will arise!
If you dont want to see hacks then deal with things in a manner similar to Fight club, dont speak about it! keep things that are good to yourself and only yourself.
@32: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758
The ones listed as OS X vulnerabilities are primarily holes in software that runs on OS X, much of which does not even ship with OS X by default.
If you read some of the OS X vulnerabilities, you’ll see that they’re often in non-Apple software, such as CVE-2007-5476 (Highly Critical) which describes a “vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player 9.0.47.0 and earlier, when running on Opera before 9.24 on Mac OS X”. The Microsoft vulnerabilities tend to be referring only to the Microsoft software.
Some of them are NOT EVEN VULNERABILITIES… like CVE-2007-3876 which is a number reserved for use by an organization for the next time they report a vulnerability, but they haven’t assigned it to anything yet.
I mean did the author even click on the links he’s providing? I tried, I was more than twenty items into the list of “highly critical OS X vulnerabilities” before I found one that actually affected a default install of OS X, and it was a potential denial of service for SSL Web sites if you have a machine in the middle. Of the first 30, 12 were reserved for future use and not real vulnerabilities, 7 were holes in the same Perl library, and 5 were holes in tcpdump. Only one was a real, hole that could be exploited on a default install without additional software being added, or it being reconfigured as Web server or something.
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“I love my Macs, but in terms of security, they’re behind the curve, compared to Windows”
Windows more secure than FreeBSD. Funny, it shows. Window viruses: 100k, FreeBSD viruses: 0. Must be that hackers don’t know FreeBSD, sure.
My comment above is mostly a quote from
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/170241
Since it takes 10 seconds to find out how fake that article is, how about checking on google before posting news on the site?
I’ve heard stats that there are millions of zombie machines out there in the world. Considering the number of exploits for Windows and how easy it is to infect a Windows machine I would bet that almost every one of them are Windows machines. Hell, the whole anti-virus and anti-spyware industry is based on the Windows platform. It’s a cash cow because everyone knows they need protection software or else they’re leaving themselves open to vulnerabilities in Windows. If you’ve used various Windows, Linux distros and the Mac OS’s you’ll have an interesting perspective on how much extra work there is involved to harden your system for each one. There is way more work involved with Windows.
cummon cobra,
you sound like your a mac fanboi. the mac osx IS based on the Linux OS kernel. thats why its as secure. LOL!
If only mac’s were half as good as Steve Jobs’ marketing skills …
I don’t understand why the main marketing campaign of Apple has to be degradation of Microsoft. You don’t see a Microsoft advert saying “Windows Vista – Plays more Games than OSX” .
Does OSX suck so much that the only way to make their features seem better is to demean those of others?
Wow , The army are supposed to be a multitasking organisation , watch out for the cute colored spinning ball guys it could be a matter of life or death but hey whats half an hour or a reboot between enemies communication infrastructures > hell what do i know . Reeeeeespekt
I really like turtles.