On 2020-09-22 11:25, nospam wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
wrote:
geoff wrote:
Or are Apple-hackers not as skilled as Win-hackers ?

Apple OS SW/HW designers run rings around PC and Windows OS designers.
That's why the FBI had to hire an Israeli firm to break into an iPhone
using a mixed hw and sw attack.

one of the main reasons why there's so much malware on windows and
android is because it's so incredibly easy to do, requiring very little
skill.

hacking macs and iphones, while not impossible, is orders of magnitude
more difficult and getting more difficult with each new os version.

in other words, 'apple-hackers' are far more skilled than 'win-hackers'.

There's that.

[1a] That said, I'd surmise that on Mac OS it's easier for malware to
access
things like the microphone and camera than on iOS because of the
somewhat generic motherboard hardware design used in x86 Macs.

the reason is because sandboxing is not required on a mac.

[1b]
It's 'cause of the h/w. Excepting T2 equipped Macs you mention below, if
the malware succeeds in getting on board (usually by social hacking)
then those devices can be compromised w/o the OS knowing what's up at all.


also, not all macs have a camera or microphone to exploit.

Irrelevant to those that do.


(Also why a large number of PC's can run Mac OS with a little help from
some hackerware - even on AMD machines per one site.)

And that said, Apple are always routing more and more h/w via custom
chips where authorization can be enforced by the OS.

With the change from intel to Apple's ARM based chips, making Malware
for Macs will become all but impossible other than "socially engineered"
hacks.

apple silicon won't have much effect.

Sure it will [2] as it will obviate cases such as [1] above.


intel macs have the t2 security chip already, for example.

[2] The T2 is a 64 bit ARM based processor, just not used as a GP CPU
and of course there are many Macs in the wild w/o it (such as my home
iMac and MBA and several Macs at work).

All Macs based on ARM will have the T2 or successors - possibly
integrated onto the same die as the main CPU some day.