Hacking and different environments

Question

For a long time, I've wanted to become a security expert. In fact, I've always wanted to know everything there is to know about computers in general. So I did some reading on viruses and the different type of environments you can get. What I found is that viruses affect Windows computers more than UNIX due to less people using UNIX for whatever reason (greater control over what goes on, etc) and Mac computers hardly get hit by viruses at all. From what I understand, this is because Apple keeps the MacOS source under lock and key basically.

What I wanted to know is this: Black Hats exploit vulnerabilities in Windows and UNIX systems. Obviously because it's intended for more main stream use, Windows gets exploited most often, but why isn't UNIX eploited more? The source code is freely available, what gives?

With that, we move on to MacOS. Nobody can see the source code unless they're employed by Apple (I guess), and as with any software, it's bound to have vulnerabilities, but, is it more difficult to hack MacOS because of the lack of availability of the code? Is it even worth it? I also read that Windows is the prime target for viruses and black hats because such a larger percentage of the population use it.

P.S. Can anyone point in the direction where I can get some good security white papers?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You may see some sources at http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-105/ ALso, decompiler & your tools for analyzing binaries are your friends here.

Not much people have seen windows sources, but still it's been hacked pretty well.

Answer 2

In some respects malware has similarities with most other types of software.

Portability is difficulty at the best of times. If your software relies on undocumented vulnerabilities, then portability is almost impossible. One can infer then you would target the platform with the highest volume of users (targets).

This is a over-simplified justification as to why Windows has more viruses than the other platforms without going into technical reasons.

Answer 3

It's mostly a matter of supply and demand - nobody wants to write a botnet which could, maybe, theoretically run on 5% of the computers available worldwide, when it is possible to write one for Windows and it will run on at least 40% of computers (a guess based on Windows market share * percentage of users who will blindly click on anything, especially if it promises them animated smilies).

This is not a matter of "Mac OS/Linux is more secure/has smarter users" - the average end user will bypass any security, if driven by a promise of dancing pigs; and both MacOS and Linux are now usable by the average user. It's just that there are many more average Windows users, because there are more Windows workstations.

In a hypothetical world where Linux would have 90% of the market share, we'd see users following malware's instructions such as "to see dancing pigs, execute chmod +x ./thisevilprogram && sudo ./thisevilprogram", precisely because the userbase would be large enough to make it profitable to write Linux malware. Ease of development or ease of overcoming security measures are rather insignificant, compared to target system's market share.

Answer 4

There are less viruses for *NIX systems because people attack them differently. With superuser requirements to make system wide changes and all it becomes harder. However, if there is a vulnerability that an attacker can use then he will most likely use it -- depending on his intentions of course. Most Windows users surf with admin permissions by default due to lacking knowledge.

Regarding Windows, a clear majority are desktop users that know less than a desktop user that would run e.g. Linux. Thus attacking the Windows users where they spend their most time is the best available option, and that's on the web reading emails containing attachments and surfing the web without being too cautious. OS X only has a market share of estimated 4.5%[1]. Spreading a worm designed to exploit vulnerabilities in Windows becomes a lot more lucrative since their market share is 93.90%.

Both Windows and OS X are running proprietary binaries. OS X is not more secure because of it, they can both be reverse engineered by a researcher that is looking for holes. Some Phrack[2] editions contain very interesting issues in OS X.

Then there's also the factor of whom the OS is designed for. Windows is primarily designed to be used by people of less knowledge ("everybody"). Their motto is "it just works". OS X doesn't differ much in that aspect but compared to a PC running Windows a Mac running OS X is a way more expensive. OS X had its main breakthrough amongst professional graphic artists and we still have that dominant opinion today. A Mac simply isn't worth it for most people that require just a browser, Solitaire and MSN.

Statistics about vulnerabilities and virus usage doesn't essentially prove which system is the most vulnerable system by design. They only show which system is being exploited the most, and it's fully logical that the most widespread systems get exploited the most.

[1] http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=119 [2] http://phrack.org/