Are PowerPC Macs vulnerable to iWorm?

[rjcalifornia]

Just read this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...to-control-17000-apple-computers-9773032.html

Seems like hackers are infecting Macs with this thing called "iWorn". It doesn't specify if PowerPC Mac are affected by this, so anyone knows about this?

 

[2984839]

Nobody knows how this thing infects or spreads, so it's impossible to say right now.

However, all the versions of OS X PowerPC Macs can run are very vulnerable in general, considering they have received no security updates in years, are running unmaintained software, and have always lacked certain exploit mitigation features such as effective ASLR.

 

[Intell]

My guess is that it works via a flaw in Safari or WebKit. If that is the case, those using older versions of WebKit could be at risk. Bit if course, this is just a guess. It could be caused by how the system renders JPEG images for all I know based on that article alone.

 

[Weaselboy]

Nobody knows how this thing infects or spreads, so it's impossible to say right now.

Just ran across this article today showing the malware is being distributed inside pirated apps.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Yup, not a worm, just "trojan" malware. The fact that it installs an executable on a modern (Intel-only-running) OS X ensures that it will not install on a PowerPC. (It would be extremely silly of a malware programmer to target PowerPC at this point.)

 

[cjmillsnun]

In some ways PowerPC Macs are more vulnerable, in other ways they are not.

Most of the modern malware is going to be aimed at Intel Macs and will only affect them (they contain only Intel code). However some vulnerabilities (for example Shellshock - not malware but a weakness in BASH) affect both PowerPC and Intel versions of Mac OS X. In this case, you will need to patch anything patchable manually as Apple won't be updating it.

Your other alternative is to use a different OS (Linux) instead of Mac OS X.