Vista More Secure Than MacOS

Beberapa saat yang lalu saya sedang iseng mencari kabar terbaru tentang MacOS kesayangan saya. Saya menemukan artikel menarik dari Macworld.com yang membeberkan bagaimana kelemahan MacOS bila dibandingkan Windows Vista. Artikel ini sudah cukup lama ternyata dipost oleh Macworld. Namun dapat juga menjadi referensi bagi kita sekarang yang menggunakan MacOS.

Ternyata ada beberapa kelemahan (vurnerability) dari aplikasi bawaan MacOS yaitu Safari dan Quicktime. Mungkin untuk saat ini sudah tidak berlaku lagi karena Apple sudah memberikan update terbarunya.

I knew exactly where the vulnerability was when I wrote the exploit; that is part of the basic vulnerability research usually required to write a reliable exploit. I intentionally did not reveal where exactly the vulnerability was in order to prevent others from reverse engineering the vulnerability from those details. Initially, I was only revealing that the vulnerability affected Safari on Mac OS X, the target of the contest. However, now ZDI [3com TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative] has been willing to publicly reveal that it affects many more system configurations, including all Java-enabled browsers on Mac OS X and Windows if QuickTime is installed.

Ada juga cara - cara yang dituturkan oleh narasumber dalam Macworld.com untuk mencegah tercurinya informasi penting anda.

I recommend that Mac users make their primary user a non-admin account, use a separate keychain for important passwords, and store sensitive documents in a separate encrypted disk image. I think these are fairly straightforward steps that many users can take to better protect their sensitive information on their computer.

Berdasarkan info yang saya baca juga, Pihak apple nampaknya kurang cepat dalam menanggapi masalah lubang security dalam OS mereka. Ternyata Pihak microsoft lebih tanggap untuk segera memberikan update terbaru untuk OS Windows vista.

I think that the amount of information that Apple releases with its patches is sufficient in the level of detail for a knowledgeable user to determine the criticality of the vulnerabilities. They do not, however, provide guidance on the level of criticality of the security update for less technical users. I do not think this is too much of an issue, though, as I believe that the vast majority of users should simply patch the security vulnerabilities as soon as possible regardless of their criticality.

I have found the code quality, at least in terms of security, to be much better overall in Vista than Mac OS X 10.4. It is obvious from observing affected components in security patches that Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) has resulted in fewer vulnerabilities in newly-written code. I hope that more software vendors follow their lead in developing proactive software security development methodologies.

Inilah teknologi. Tidak pernah ada yang sempurna dalam sebuah teknologi. Selalu terjadi penyempurnaan dari masa ke masa.
MacOS memang baik dalam menghadapi ancaman dari malware, spyware, trojan, dll. Namun tetap ada kekurangannya. Segera update MacOS anda untuk meminimalisasi kemungkinan terserang melalui lubang security yang ada.