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Help!! Hacker attack on a Mac?!! Very Important and Very Concerned!

K

klex

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2007
144
0
I was reading an article about how hackers can gain access to your mac when using MSN Messenger. Seeing as I lent my computer to a friend the past week, I knowing that he uses MSN to talk to random people (don't ask me why), am I now vulnerable? Is there any way to check?

Thanks!!!
 
What article? Link or reference, please. The only thing I could find was from 2006. In other words, relax. Besides, why not use iChat or Adium? Or, did your friend install it? Which brings up point #2 -- don't loan out your Mac (or any other highly personal machine) to a "friend". Obviously, they can't be trusted.
 
klex said:
here's the link:
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1657

Yeah, I know it was stupid to lend it to him, but he is a good friend and wanted to try out a mac before getting one himself.

So I don't have to worry?
Click to expand...

Two things:

#1) This article is from 2003. Vulnerabilities are discovered and patched all the time. There's a good chance this has already been fixed.

#2) These exploits pertain to Windows and won't affect the Mac platform.

That's not to say you shouldn't be careful, but it's worth nil to worry over this.
 
is there any way to check for any vulnerabilities just in case?
 
I was thinking more in the lines of scanning my harddrive for anything suspicious. Is that possible?
 
klex said:
I was thinking more in the lines of scanning my harddrive for anything suspicious. Is that possible?
Click to expand...

There's a few anti-virus applications around for the Mac, like Virex. Again though, for now there's no reason to bother. Take it from someone who's been on the Mac for years, there's no reason you should be worrying.

When the time comes to be an ultra-cautious user, if it ever comes, you'll know. People make the hugest deals over the littlest, stupidest, and downright ridiculous trojans and exploits. The last "major exploit" for the Mac, I believe, was a trojan required you to click through an installer to actually be infected.
 
As always, people on this forum have proved invaluable. I really do appreciate everyone's help and assistance. For good measures, I took the liberty of deleting Messenger, and trust me, it will never be allowed onto to my baby as long as she is mine.
 
Do NOT start using anti-virus software. Anti-virus software has the real potential to CAUSE problems on your computer. Right now there are NO viruses for OS X. As of today, the only vulnerabilities in the wild for OS X are trojans, which means they are mal-ware that tries to trick you into installing them, but which otherwise have no way to infect your system. In other words, the only virus protection you need at the moment is common sense. Do not install anything from untrustworthy sources. That's all you need to do to stay almost completely safe at the moment.
 
Wow, relax.

The program isn't the focus of the attack, it's the OS. And since Apple does not use Windows you're fine. Calm down.
 
umm... check for any suspicious ports open? (sudo ipfw list)

look for suspicious connections? (netstat -na)

don't know what you want to check... :confused:
 
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