Thanks!

I believe that this is really my point. To make the statement that Apple itself needs to step up to the plate is to be a bit shortsighted.

With a user base of over twenty-five million users, many of whom are obviously well enough off to afford the more expensive high end Apple units, to say that Apple has not till now been an economic target is also shortsighted. Since the vulnerabilities in Windows are well known, and it is also well known that millions of them are never updated, THAT is why Apple is not targeted, combined with the fact that to work out ways to target them as bots is harder than to just use what works and won’t take additional work.

Phishing works, and does not target a particular platform, all it takes is someone unaware of the dangers. that is why it is used, and won’t go away until folks get the message.

“…clearly your dissemination of this key piece of data isn’t working either.” It isn’t MY dissemination, any more than you claim the other solution. Obviously, the INDUSTRY hasn’t figured this out either, but they damn well should.

As for “your solution just isn’t working”, I’m not sure why this is “my” solution. You advocated the need for users to be aware that e-mail that leads directly to a site that requests personal information is bad, clearly your dissemination of this key piece of data isn’t working either

BTW, I wonder if you assume that I’m trolling. That’s not the case. I use a selection of different hardware and software from multiple vendors with Mac’s being my families primary machines. The point here is that Apple is going to be the next target, as a result of its success it is now economically worthwhile for phishers to hit Apple users and phishing against the Apple store itself is a great example of that.

I agree that OS manufacturers should step up, but then, perhaps, they should step up with something that WILL work and not something that just shows a false promise!

In the meantime, perhaps the education half of your solution just isn’t working as well as it should?

Umm… if they have your credit card info and SSN, they can buy anything from anywhere… not just Apple. I know this is “The Apple Blog” and all, but they’re not the only company that accepts credit cards for payment.

Over time, assuming that the adoption of Apple hardware+software continues to rise, it’s just not going to be sufficient for Apple to try to rely on claims that *nix is just more secure, they are going to have to work on the problems proactively. Remember a recent browser hacking contest? First to fall…Apple, it took a lot more time to take down Vista and Linux didn’t break. With increased popularity comes increased responsibility.

There is NOTHING like being aware that NOBODY sends an email to their customers with a link to follow where you are asked for personal information. One should ALWAYS go to your vendor’s site using your own bookmarks, or better yet, just calling them to settle any possible problems.

That is a cross platform issue, and is not unique to Macs or PCs.