So much for that argument that Mac is more secure and safer than Windows. ;)

True, but I think you would be hard pressed to find any Mac users that switched from the PC because of the lessened probability of malicious attacks.

I'm getting so freaking annoyed with this Mac vs PC thing. It's almost as stupid and irrational as U.S. politics.

Don't worry paulguy, Mac wants to disconnect themselves from traditional search via their apps platform. If/when they do you won't have to install any political app :-)

....and the hackers only get smarter while the consumer gets lazier & more misguided by their computer maker's advertising, amazing!

Did anyone read the actual article?

This bug isn't about facebook, twitter, or mac even, it's a Java exploit but that doesn't make a sensational headline.

Bill, this came up on one of my forums and I caught it in the bud - I posted right after the fellow who posted with a provocative "Macs now virus targets" title (or words to that effect). I did read the article and you are right. It's cross platform being a Java exploit. It should also be noted that Apple has been and is depreciating Java. It will probably go away in the future just as Flash (at least in its present form) is slowly being "phased out".

Just use Firefox and install the NoScript and RequestPolicy plugins. Overwrought websites (that is, almost all websites) won't work any longer, but you'll be safe from web-based scripting shenanigans like this.

Oh, and from reading the research pages, it seems that this is no bug in Java, it's a hole in user education. The applet requests permission to gain security privileges (so that it can read and write to your computer as any desktop application would) and the user has to say "Allow" to permit it to do so.

Let's be honest, if a .exe file was asking for the same permission, plenty of users would click "Allow", and this is little different.

Until users stop and think "wait a minute" before running new software, these attacks will be common. The fact that Java is cross-platform just means that the net is thrown wider.

Good points, UserFriendly - That's part of what I posted as well. It's a social exploit where you have to visit a specific website. My analogy was that many people still open email attachments from people they don't know without a thought and end up with a hosed computer. It has nothing to do specifically with the OS someone is using.

MAC users are really hypocrites. Their superior smug attitude betrays a dark secret.

They can't really exist without PC's according to a recent survey.

More than eight out of ten Mac owners also own a PC, according to a new piece of research.

The NPD survey found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac. However, 85% of those also own a Windows PC

If the MAC was such a superior computer why bother owning a PC?

All of the browsers that work on the PC can render websites differently then on a Mac. A good developer wants to make sure that his work looks good on all browsers on both Macs and PCs.

That is why I "bother" having a PC.

That is the ONLY reason I have one.

This has nothing to do with Mac except that Mac anti-virus vendors are spinning it that way to boost sales.

It is a problem if you have a Java plugin installed and you run an unsigned Java applet from a fake video site, AND you are using an old version of Java.

According to the discussion on the Ubuntu forums, it does not install anything permanently (on Linux anyway). I do not have Java installed at all and if I did it would be kept up to date by the package manager.

@frontpage, it says households, not users. I use Linux, if my wife choose to run Windows on her PC that would not mean that I needed Windows, but it would mean our household had both. In fact, I run XP in a virtualbox VM just to run IE6 for testing.

I have Macs here, I have PCs here, I have servers running on FreeBSD, I have servers running on Linux.

People who make statements like "MAC users are really hypocrites. Their superior smug attitude betrays a dark secret." are simply trying to start some type of fight or argument, and are simply haters or have mental problems of some sort. An OS is an OS, and each has its pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses.

I do agree with "All of the browsers that work on the PC can render websites differently then on a Mac. A good developer wants to make sure that his work looks good on all browsers on both Macs and PCs." which is why I even have (as of recently) an iOS device. It's just another OS to work with and/or test with.

Other than the misleading thread title, the thread is about the Koobface worm which, as has been stated, is a cross platform Java 'exploit' which uses social engineering to get into peoples computers.

I do not have Java installed at all and if I did it would be kept up to date by the package manager.

Then how the heck do you run Open Office? :)

Even if you have Java installed, the trick is to have Java applets disabled in your browser.

Java applets are so 1996, I didn't think anyone used them anymore let alone enabled it in a browser, but I always keep it disabled regardless.

Java running desktop apps really isn't much of a problem.

It will probably go away in the future just as Flash (at least in its present form) is slowly being "phased out".

I'll wish Mr. Jobs good luck with that as it would be like trying to phase out assembler, C, C++, C#, ASP, it's just a language and unfortunately for Apple, they have no control over which languages people use to write software.

The demise of Flash (as we now know it today) will not be because of Jobs. It will be because, as it is today, it will just not be relevant in the future. I've been using Flashblock myself for quite a while now to eliminate a lot of garbage (just as noscript does). Flash is popular today. That does not mean that 5 or 10 years from now it will still be. Like cobol and PL1 and FORTRAN (which I programmed in back in the early 1970's), it will run its course into obscurity. That doesn't mean it will go away completely any more than FORTRAN or cobol has. But, time moves on. I prefer to look to the future than to be stuck in the past.