Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'A warning on a new destructive 'trojan horse'' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
A warning on a new destructive 'trojan horse'
Authored by: markuswarren on May 12, '04 02:47:34PM

Very interesting reading.

i could be wrong here, but wouldn't "sudo rm -rf /" remove everthing from the disk, if the admin password is provided? In which case, this could be used with unpleasant consequences.

I do not think Apple should make scripts display an alert when the rm -rf shell command is being used, I have a fair few scripts that issue such commands and I WANT them to run silently, I don't want alerts popping up.

As said, this is a 'social engineering' issue and not a fault of Mac OS X, though I'm sure we'll see all those mac haters harping on about this major problem with OS X.

So what can be done? well, if you backup your users folder (and I do) then if it is destroyed then you can recover.



[ Reply to This | # ]
A warning on a new destructive 'trojan horse'
Authored by: james_sorenson on May 12, '04 03:01:47PM
I will be highly amused if the "Mac Haters" really try to harp on this. Ever heard of a batch file (*.bat)? How does this grab ya?
deltree \*.*
It still works, too. You can make it specifically target the user folder, but I don't have my Windoze ex-pee notes with me on that. Poor guys try so hard to not look like the rock-bottom whipping boys of 14-yr old coders.

---
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams

[ Reply to This | # ]

A warning on a new destructive 'trojan horse'
Authored by: nite77 on May 12, '04 06:05:53PM

... and deltree takes the "/y" switch... so "deltree /y \" or "deltree /y %windir%" is not something the win-folks would enjoy...

---
/Nite - "can't rain all the time"
[ http://www.nitesade.net ]



[ Reply to This | # ]