Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

Earlier in the week, MacInTouch reported a malicious script that the media and others immediately, and erroneously, labeled a virus. Wednesday, while co-hosting YML, Shawn King and I interviewed a representative from anti-virus creator Sophos, who said straight out that Opener has no way to reproduce itself.

After the interview, I brought up the point that Opener is not a virus, as reported by the tech press, nor was it a worn, as Sophos has designated it. Shawn asked, “Why is it important what it’s called?” I didn’t have a chance to respond, so I’d like to take that opportunity here.

As I’ve said on this site before, words mean things. We assign words to describe particular things because they are different, because they meet certain criteria, a definition. When computer code is labeled as a virus, that tells me something about how the code behaves, how it spreads, what form it takes when a user or admin encounters it. A virus spreads differently from a worm which spreads differently from a trojan. There are different ways to counter each and to protect equipment and data.

Sophos has Opener labeled as a worm, and their categorization doesn’t meet their own definition. It does not have the ability to self-replicate, as I pointed out earlier and as the Sophos rep told us on the air, which means that in order to spread, it needs a helper program or a human to do it. If anything, Opener could be a trojan. It may be debatable whether a misnamed shell script should be considered a trojan.

Accurate threat information is important. No operating system is completely secure, and when threats arise, those of us who ultimately deal with them need the best possible information. Admittedly Opener is a relatively minor event, but it should serve as good practice for the real thing when it inevitably happens and should reflect the Mac community’s dedication to security and ability to react to threats effectively. In my opinion that didn’t completely happen, and I hope we get it right next time around.