Microsoft AV Head Criticizes Apple
The individual at Microsoft responsible for making sure product releases ship without viruses lashed back at Apple Wednesday, after the company chided Microsoft for having an insecure operating system within an advisory regarding iPods that shipped with a virus.
Apple apologized Tuesday for the roughly 1 percent of video iPods that shipped after September 12, 2006 with the mass-storage virus Win32.RJump.a. "As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," the company said.
The remark drew the ire of security professionals and Microsoft employees alike. Jonathan Poon handles the release virus scanning system for the Redmond company, and shot back at Apple in a blog posting.
"It's not a matter of which platform that the virus originated. The fact that it's found on the portable player means that there's an issue with how the quality checks, specifically the content check was done," he said. "Taking this into perspective, McDonald's in Japan encountered a similar incident just a few days earlier as well. Indeed, they published a press release, apologized for it, and did not insinuate that Windows was the cause of their issue."
Security firm F-Secure pointed out that Apple referred to the virus as a "Windows Virus" throughout the advisory. "Let's be clear, some Apple iPods have shipped with a virus that affects mass storage devices. So it might not be a Mac OS or an iPod issue. But this is an Apple issue, not just Windows," the company said.
"Careful Apple… remember that whole 'stones, glass houses thing?'" remarked Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry. "And as the folks at F-Secure said this morning 'Whom do you think the people that bought those iPods will be more upset with?'"
"Is it now open season for Zune to come up with their own ad to highlight this incident, as a direct response to the video ad?" asked Microsoft's Poon. "Steve, if you need someone to advise on how to improve your quality checks, feel free to contact me."