liquidfear on 4/9/2008 at 22:47
So, despite the fact that it feels like years since I've posted, I've pulled this dusty, adolescent account out of the pits of the cellar and have thrown it forwards into the light once again!
Alot has changed in my year hiatus. So much, in fact, that I have gone out and done what I swore I would never do. I bought a Mac.
Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't used to like Apple, but that was back in the day of the crappy ass operating systems. And after my HP Computer recently died on me (less than a week after the warranty expired, no less), I figured it was time to try something new.
I have to admit, I'm not the best at understanding computers. They just aren't my strong point, so please bare with me through what may be considered ridiculously easy questions?
Firstly, I bought a one of the new Macbook Pro's. I decided to switch to Mac, in part, because of the capability of running Bootcamp and loading Windows XP. The only reason I consistently chose Microsoft was for the gaming aspect. Now with the Intel chips and Bootcamp, well. You get the drift.
This leads me to some interesting scenarios. First, and easiest to answer, I've heard that since mac has switched to Intel based chips, it has become easier to infect with viruses and such. Is this true? I mean, my knowledge suggests that they wouldn't be, as the code of the operating systems are still different. Also, if this isn't true, are there still only a handful of viruses that affect macs?
There's more. Suppose I load up windows, surf the web, and download a rootkit. Since a rootkit alters the operating system on a fundamental level, and that the windows is still operating on a mac drive, I want to know if a rootkit could affect the Mac Os. I'm also questioning whether there are even rootkits out there that could effect Mac or even worse, infect both systems.
Alternatively, if I download a rootkit on the windows partition, and then I delete the partition, would all of the rootkit still be residing somewhere on the hard drive?
And lastly, is it difficult to remove the windows partition and code, or is it a walk?
Matthew on 5/9/2008 at 09:28
I don't think it's a matter of being easier to infect as such, more that no-one bothered writing viruses for Apples when they were more niche.
David on 5/9/2008 at 10:45
The permissions system used in OSX (and Linux, as they are both Unix-based) make it harder for viruses and trojans to get a foothold, however no system is immune. There are far fewer viruses and trojans for Macs, but they do exist, and are extremely rare. The trojans focus more on social engineering techniques (download this app for FREE BOOBS) and in that case no operating system can be safe.
If you have a rootkit on your BootCamp partition it is possible for it to make it to your OSX partition if a) it has drivers to read the filesystem of OSX, which does not use NTFS like Windows, but HFS+. This is exceptionally unlikely, like a thousandth of a percentage point, or b) you have MacDrive installed on your BootCamp partition to read your OSX partition. There are few people who require MacDrive, so this is quite unusual.
In any case OSX would be unable to run the Windows RootKit so there are no worries there.
Removing the Windows partition is easy - load up Disk Utility (~/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility), select the Windows partition, delete it and then expand your OSX drive to fill the remaining space.
