MadMacs0 wrote:
You make a good point as regards this threat, but perhaps the next malware outbreak will involve automatically running something far more harmful under the radar.
It is a lot harder for malware to do anything harmful surreptitiously in OS X than you might think, especially if you are running Snow Leopard. For example, the OS limits what Javascript can do, even if it is enabled & not restricted by browser additions. File quarantine restricts what downloaded executable files can do without authentication by users, even for admin accounts.
Security in OS X is complicated, multilevel, & many of the details of how it works are not obvious to users. If you are interested in studying such things, a good place to start is this developer document, but it is lengthy & just an overview. In addition, some parts of some security API's are "opaque," meaning more or less that they are not documented beyond their initial calling requirements & ending states, & may change internally from one OS revision to the next.
Of course, just because it is extremely difficult for malware to do anything without user action or awareness does not mean users should get careless or complacent about these threats. Security is all about trust, & ultimately the OS must trust user decisions or it could not function beyond a very basic level. If you tell it that it is OK to install malware, it will trust your decision & do exactly that.
