While recent efforts to successfully create a true "virus" through a "complete hack" for OS X has failed on numerous accounts, there have been some accounts of creating an application exploits under OS X. The most recent one, is documented by an "anonymous" researcher who claims to have proof of concept worm under OS X, which (he says) works by manipulating the mDNS stack in Apple's Bonjour network service.
The individual claims that the worm was only created in several hours, and states that the worm is fully automated and ready for use:
"[My worm] is in the same code base, obviously, but that is where the similarity to the recently patched issues ends," said the researcher in an e-mail interview. "When Apple fixed the previous issues, they did not take care of the entire code base and there are a lot of bugs there... some are exploitable, like the one I am using, while others are not. But the fact remains that Apple did a horrible job in fixing this package."
According to the researcher, the worm is fully automated and ready to use. "It would be considered a fully weaponized exploit and fully automated," he said. "This is really no different than other worms we have seen [on the Windows platform]. Other than that, I am not able to give any more details."
Another researcher, however, questioned whether the anonymous individual crafted the worm in only a few hours, as claimed. "Writing the exploit in one day... unlikely for anything other than a stack overflow," said Dave Aitel, the chief technology officer at Immunity, Inc., a Miami Beach-based security company best known for its Canvas penetration testing software. "So most likely he found a stack overflow in mDNS, which is perfectly possible. It is open source, after all."
The researcher who claims to have created the worm didn't detail the vulnerability, but did emphasize that writing the exploit was a breeze. "The hard part is finding the bug," he said. "Once you have found it, it is very easy to exploit. The Bonjour (mDNS) service is UDP [user Datagram Protocol, one of the core Internet protocols] Universal as well, making it even more fun for things like worms."
There are several reasons to speculate and doubt the individual's motive and claims behind this worm. Firstly, why keep the anonymity level if this is infact a real threat to OS X? Previously, Dino Dai Zovi, who was able to create a worm lower in significance to this individual, was appraised for doing such an accomplishment, so when this is at a highler level of threat...why hide the name? Secondly, the individual states that he/she will at some point report it to Apple...not immediately. Why the wait time?
"I do believe in being responsible and working with vendors," he said, "but I also feel that some vendors need to be treated like children and learn lessons the hard way. Apple has a very long way to go when dealing with security issues in their products."
OS X is not invincible, nor invulnerable, but regardless of that above statement however, as of today, this hour, this minute, and this second...the total exploits (viruses) in the wild for OS X (from a time period of 6 years)...still stands at 0. Go figure.
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