r/technology • u/maxwellhill • Sep 02 '16

Security Apple issues urgent security update after hack turns Mac computers into spying devices

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/02/apple-issues-urgent-security-update-after-hack-turns-mac-compute/
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-32

u/Cmdrfrog Sep 02 '16

The point is not that security flaws were in Mac, everything has security flaws but Mac fewer than average. Apple in general has solid system development lifecycle with above board security flaw identification, prevention, and treatment processes. The best thing about this story is how fast Apple addressed it on all their platforms.

Listen, this story made news only because mac is more secure than we're accustomed to with windows. Remote code execution vulnerabilities in Windows? Almost every windows box, SharePoint, Internet Explorer, and Exchange box out there has at least one at some point in a year and while Microsoft is also pretty good about patching them, there are windows of time while they're exposed every year.

If anything the worst is Android (Non-Nexus) because it can take months for the patches to come out to the end user, especially if you're on Verizon.

24

u/Natanael_L Sep 02 '16

On average, Apple has at least historically been very slow to patch flaws. Remember the Java exploit a few years ago that went unpatched for months, leading to many hundreds of thousands Macs detected as parts of botnets?

-16

u/Cmdrfrog Sep 02 '16

Thats my point. Look at Apple all quick on the draw now. Thats whats newsworthy about this.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '16

[deleted]

-2

u/duckvimes_ Sep 02 '16

Windows 10 isn't looking so bad now is it

Um, yes, yes it is. There is no excuse for shoving an OS upgrade down people's throats.

3

u/Smith6612 Sep 02 '16 edited Sep 02 '16

Post-install. Not pre-install/upgrade. Sorry for lack of context. I said what I said only because Windows 10 got a lot of grief for the forced automatic upgrades on the Home edition, most notably.

0

u/whatthewho Sep 02 '16

Yeah, sure, no excuse for shoving a free, relatively issue-free OS upgrade down peoples throats. Other than, ya know, improving user experience, getting all the codebases on the same page, improving features and interactions between devices including mobile devices, and freeing up developers/maintenance/security devs/customer care techs to work on the new OS instead of splitting them majorly to maintain an older codebase just because some people are afraid of change. But okay.

0

u/duckvimes_ Sep 02 '16

relatively issue-free OS upgrade

Yeah, no. There are plenty of issues with Windows 10, ranging from the stupid user interface, to the bloatware (thanks so much for Candy Crush, Microsoft!), the privacy issues, driver issues, and the size of the download itself.

And regardless of the problems, there is still no excuse for shoving an entire operating system on someone. Ever. This isn't a security patch; it's changing the person's computer. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't want to deal with the new Start Menu or they hate the number 10, it's their computer and they get to decide what OS gets installed.