For years now, Apple has been promoting a myth saying that its devices were immune to the malware which plagued personal computers and claimed that it was thanks to the superior OS design.
Only Apple fans could seriously believe in it, while this myth was made up by the company’s marketing, even after their operating system appeared to be regularly turned over at hacking events.
In fact, Apple managed to get away with it only because its iOS was such a small player that virus writers couldn’t be bothered writing code to target it. However, this was before iPhones and iPads became too widespread and this OS became a viable target.
According to the security company Sophos, there was a change in the company’s marketing: for instance, official Apple website now features a new statement: instead of the claim that its Mac computers are “completely immune to viruses” you can now see just “It's built to be safe”. Although Apple refused to comment this, the press asked its former engineer currently working with Google what the change could be all about.
The latter said that Jobs’ reality distortion field actually represented “a confounding mix of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand. He also said that spin played a great role in the company’s marketing strategy. However, Apple doesn’t have much to stand on when calling its Macs absolutely safe when they aren’t.
It became clear when the Flashback trojan killed off all illusions that the Mac machines were completely secure. The malware in question even managed to create a false Apple-signed Java certificate that tricked users into clicking the “Continue” button in order to allow the virus infect the host further.
The experts believe that most of the security problems were caused by the company’s arrogance. Apple couldn’t be bothered updating its Java security patches, most likely because it believed its own spin. This was completely fatal, but the hopes are that it won’t repeat. A great example for Apple is Microsoft – the company which learned the hard way that security is not the thing you can be light about, or a subject for faith.
Only Apple fans could seriously believe in it, while this myth was made up by the company’s marketing, even after their operating system appeared to be regularly turned over at hacking events.
In fact, Apple managed to get away with it only because its iOS was such a small player that virus writers couldn’t be bothered writing code to target it. However, this was before iPhones and iPads became too widespread and this OS became a viable target.
According to the security company Sophos, there was a change in the company’s marketing: for instance, official Apple website now features a new statement: instead of the claim that its Mac computers are “completely immune to viruses” you can now see just “It's built to be safe”. Although Apple refused to comment this, the press asked its former engineer currently working with Google what the change could be all about.
The latter said that Jobs’ reality distortion field actually represented “a confounding mix of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand. He also said that spin played a great role in the company’s marketing strategy. However, Apple doesn’t have much to stand on when calling its Macs absolutely safe when they aren’t.
It became clear when the Flashback trojan killed off all illusions that the Mac machines were completely secure. The malware in question even managed to create a false Apple-signed Java certificate that tricked users into clicking the “Continue” button in order to allow the virus infect the host further.
The experts believe that most of the security problems were caused by the company’s arrogance. Apple couldn’t be bothered updating its Java security patches, most likely because it believed its own spin. This was completely fatal, but the hopes are that it won’t repeat. A great example for Apple is Microsoft – the company which learned the hard way that security is not the thing you can be light about, or a subject for faith.
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