Re: Newspaper Article about Cable Modem security / Solutions?

[Dorian Moore <d () kleber net>]

Neil Ratzlaff wrote:
> At home I have been using a Mac, so I really don't have to worry much.

That's what you think! ... I'm relatively concerned by this issue. The
fact that MacOS 9 now ships with the ability to appleshare over IP (from
a standard desktop with file sharing) implies that hackers could now
start gaining access to Mac users machines via TCP/IP (I know, who wants
to steal Data of a mac?)... as the MacOS starts to move more towards the
BSD backend (from MacOS10) this is going to become more of an issue. 

Classically Mac users (and I'm not belittling mac users, I'm writing
this from a Powerbook, MacOS is my platform of choice, even though I'm a
sysadmin...) are less technically orientated and rely on security
through obscurity (IE there are Less Mac orientated Viruses, there are
less remote hacks/DOS scares), and users quite frequently set up file
sharing on a network without a password (hey, it's a mac, what's the problem).

I know of a couple of routing/firwall products which run on Macs
(http://www.sustworks.com/ is probably the best)... and I also know how
to install a particular routing product via appleshare, and set up a
configuration so that the next time the user restarts your have an IP
product which looks out onto their net and you can tunnel into (and if
you know how, it's possible to manually install, over appletalk, any
number of PCanywhere alikes onto a Mac). Sniffing around a Mac with
ResEdit over appleshare can give you quite a bit of information about
how the network is configured as well...

Anyway, I digress, just really making a point that Macs seem to be on
the way to becoming a more open and world friendly architecture. This is
a great thing for interoprability, but it's also a security threat to a
lot of people who think 'Hey, it's only a Mac'

my 2 pence worth

d.

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