[HM] Re: Spyware?

[Duane Murphy]

--- At Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:39:32 -0600, Charles Turner wrote:

>On Jan 30, 2004, at 7:31 AM, Home Macintosh Users List wrote:
>
>> He did say that Mac OS X was more susceptable (sp?) to "bad stuff" 
>> than Mac
>> OS 9x and earlier.  Anyone else agree?  I haven't gone to OS X yet.
>
>Because of file access permissions and the fact that an OSX user isn't 
>running (with a few exceptions) with any special access privileges, I 
>would think that OSX is less susceptible than OS9.
>
>One of the functions in Aladdin's Internet Cleanup product is 
>"SpyAlert." Exactly what it looks for I don't know.
>
><http://www.aladdinsys.com/mac/cleanup/index.html>
>

There is a couple of things you can do to help prevent any such problems
as well. The most important of which is to _not_ be logged in as an admin
user all the time.

I recently changed over by adding another user and making that user the
admin user and removing my admin privs (this prevents problems with
existing documents). The system is more secure because any software that
is run does not get admin privileges automatically.

A second important consideration is to never enable the root account.
This prevents someone from logging in as root and wrecking havoc with
your system. I am software developer and I have been running OS X for
several years and I still don't have root enabled.

The final important and tough hassle is to be careful of products that
ask for you to login using your admin password. It stinks that so many
installers are broken and brain damaged that they think they need to be
logged in as admin. Everyone should complain loudly to any software
developer that requires you to use your admin password without telling
you exactly why and what it is doing.

 ...Duane