Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 11 February 2009 06:10
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
If a trustworthy Mac OS X application pops up an authorisation dialog, it's safe to click OK - right? Wrong!
Mac OS X users have become accustomed to clicking OK when an authentication dialog appears in situations such as installing software or changing system preferences from a non-admin account.
But Symantec's Alfredo Pesoli has
pointed out how easily this feature can be used by malware masquerading as a trustworthy application.
If you 'dink' the Details disclosure triangle in the authentication dialog, you'll see the right being requested and the name and icon of the application making the request.
If the application is something innocuous like System Preferences, you might be tempted to click OK.
But just because the application is
called System Preferences, that doesn't mean it
is System Preferences.
Pesoli suggests clicking on the Application field in order to display the path to the program. Then if System Preferences isn't in the Applications folder in the root folder of your startup volume, something's probably wrong, so Just Say No.
Is this merely of academic interest? Please
read on.
