[drieddust]

Not getting a virus is a theoretical impossibility so Apple claiming the contrary is dishonest.

Moreover Apple only stopped after misleading users for a long time and that also hapenned after high profile incidents as explained in the article.

[Razengan]

Did iOS ever have a “virus”?

[drieddust]

No, never iOS is deisgned by Gods themselves.

https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS

[Razengan]

Not all malware is a "virus."

Has iOS ever had anything where one app could "corrupt" other apps?

[drieddust]

> Not all malware is a "virus."

Haha, this is called moving the goal post. Fanboys do this all the time :)

Edit: Plenty of buffer overflow and momory corruptions are listed for iOS just in 2019.

https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=...

[dang]

This comment breaks more than one of the site guidelines. Could you please review them and follow them when posting here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[saagarjha]

> Haha, this is called moving the goal post. Fanboys do this all the time :)

Ignoring the jab, which has no place here, malware is a general term which includes viruses. From the Wikipedia page on computer viruses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus):

> The term "virus" is also misused by extension to refer to other types of malware. "Malware" encompasses computer viruses along with many other forms of malicious software, such as computer "worms", ransomware, spyware, adware, trojan horses, keyloggers, rootkits, bootkits, malicious Browser Helper Object (BHOs), and other malicious software. The majority of active malware threats are actually trojan horse programs or computer worms rather than computer viruses. The term computer virus, coined by Fred Cohen in 1985, is a misnomer.[16] Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected host computers, such as acquisition of hard disk space or central processing unit (CPU) time, accessing private information (e.g., credit card numbers), corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user's screen, spamming their e-mail contacts, logging their keystrokes, or even rendering the computer useless. However, not all viruses carry a destructive "payload" and attempt to hide themselves—the defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-replicating computer programs which modify other software without user consent.

> Edit: Plenty of buffer overflow and momory corruptions are listed for iOS just in 2019.

Again, these aren't viruses or even malware.

[drieddust]

> The majority of active malware threats are actually trojan horse programs or computer worms rather than computer viruses.

What's your point here? Hidden malware secretly watching your phone is better than explicit virus? Ignorance is bliss I guess.

> defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-replicating computer programs which modify other software without user consent.

and Malware doesn't replicate?

[Razengan]

I've been saying virus since the start. There's a clear technical distinction, and unprecedented for a general-purpose platform to be free of those, until iOS.

If you want to use the broad, general definition of malware, then Microsoft literally bundles malware with Windows 10 in the form of their "telemetry" and Candy Crush advertisements.

[jki275]

buffer overflow and memory corruption is not a virus. He asked a specific question, and people answered different questions while ignoring the question he actually asked.

[drieddust]

His specific question is just a diversion tactics. Parent comment was about Apple intentionally misleading gullible people for many years by claiming that MACs don't get virus. They didn't change until high profile attacks hit and it was no longer viable to make the claim.

Instead of commenting on this, he just moved the goal post to iOS never getting a Virus. What does iOS never getting a Virus has anything to do with Apple being dishonest?