Re: Yet Another Security Hole
Apple disabled their equivalent of Auto-Run in 1997-8, when the Auto Start Worm arrived. Apparently some Windows fanboi was butt-hurt by all the Apple ads saying that Power PC CPUs did twice the work per clock cycle than Intel CPUs (which wasn’t quite true, but close enough to annoy some Crapple haters) and created malware which cut PPC speeds by half. It installed using Apple’s Auto Start feature. Apple issued a fix which turned Auto Start off, killing the malware.
Microsoft has turned Auto Run off by default… it took them over a decade to do it, but they did. Some idiots turn it back on. I hate to say it, but this one isn’t Microsoft’s fault. This one is purely local, either PEBCK or, worse, lazy administrators who implemented stupid policies.
I have disabled anything resembling Auto Run on all hardware that I control. Several users have asked me to enable it. I have a form stating that I will do that, if they take responsibility for any malware that gets onto the system and/or network as a result. For some reason nobody signs it. Pity, that.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
