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"Experts" Say Macs Are Not Safer Than PCs
MoneyT writes "As reported at vnunet, experts are claiming that Macs are no safer than PCs in terms of protection from a virus. Seems more to me like they're just saying that we Mac users aren't invulnerable, but until I see things like nimda taking out my Mac, I'll stick with the iBook." The article doesn't mention that the "7,000 macro viruses" attack Microsoft products (leaving uses of a Mac only as a web server completely protected from them), nor does it quote any statistics about how many Mac vs. Windows viruses exist, and it doesn't address the real-
world fact that Macs are hit with viruses far less often than Windows machines.
Was this commentary done with OS/X, or earlier versions? I would expect OS/X to be considerably more resistant, given a true multi-user base, where the default userid is not 'admin'.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Antivirus firm Symantec said that over three quarters of Mac users are under the illusion that they are not a target for virus writers and hackers. Well, in that case I should rush out and buy some Antivirus soft...hey...waitaminit.. Jeff
Just Symantec trying to boost sales of their Macintosh product. I use a Mac without MSOffice, and I almost never use IE (I use OmniWeb, Chimera, or full Mozilla instead), and only use OS X (don't use Virtual PC). None of the viruses they're talking about (except maybe Sub7, though all but one of the SubSeven viruses listed in Symantec's only encyclopedia are said to affect .exe files - not a Mac problem). Sure, there are probably a few Unix vulnerability that could hurt me, but compared to the 1 copy I get of Klez.H per day, I feel much safer on my Mac.
according to experts who have just shattered a long standing myth.
This is total biased crap. I don't mean to troll, but think about the statement. Who where the experts? A company who sells virus software, who wants to break into the mac market. What was their evidence? "Because we said so".
Unless I get cold hard facts, I refuse to beleive that apple has code that is so flawed it would be a threat to national security. The same things about MacOS that makes it more stable are the things that make it more secure, namely properly written code, and quality assurance testing before release. None of this security by obscurity that you see way too often.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
I think the perception that Macs are more secure derives from their relative lack of use in the server world. There are more Windows machines out there and therefore, Windows machines have more problems. I didn't see anything about relative failure rates between MacOS and Windows but I wouldn't be suprised if they were about the same. (Linux might be a little better if for no other reason than your average Linux user actually cares about security).
The reality is 99% of security is up to the user. A properly configured Windows machine is pretty much as secure as a properly configured Mac, or Linux machine, or [insert your OS here].
I think Mac users feel attacked enough by the rest of the world, to bother with attacking each other. :)
As I am fond of saying, I believe it's possible, I just don't think it's a coincidence that I've never seen it.
- H
You compare Mac Virii to Windows Virii..fine.
You compare Word Virii to Mac Virii...fine.
How about you get those numbers out then work out a ratio to the number of Windows OS's to Mac OS's.
I think then you will understand the reason the numbers are the way they are. More targets, get more Virii. If Macs had the market share there would be more Virii for Macs than windows. Supply and demand in a strange sort of way. Not a better or worse OS, the OS have very little to do with which system gets more Virii writen for them. It has to do with infection ratios and impact.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
The "revelation" that Macs aren't inherently more immune to viruese is like someone revealing that all multicellular organisms are vulnerable to viruses.
Not news. Ye gods. Of COURSE the Mac platform is suceptible to viruses. Anything that accepts any kind of instruction set and has the ability to create data in some way is suceptible to viruses. The more of something there is, the more viruses "survive" long enough to mutate into new forms, 'cause there's really no point in creating a virus unless it's going to be released somehow. The smaller a population, the easier it is to defend against a viral invasion, as there are both less things to immunize (install anti-virus software on) and less potential hosts for the virus (making it alot harder for the virus to get a grip). Macs are currently less suceptible to viruses because there are less out there created for it and there are less Macs to put them on, and I would imagine that the only reason a virus writer writes a virus is to release it and cause havoc for whatever reason they may have, and there's a finite amount of havinc that you can create through a Mac virus. The only reason there haven't been more Linux viruses is because it's in relatively low numbers in comparison to Windows (as far as total machines with the system loaded, not any particular subset) and because of those low numbers and other reasons, Linux users take far more care of their PCs than most people who run Windows. Very few Linux users that I know aren't update freaks. Mac users are also a relatively rabid update community (see versiontracker) and that means a majority of the holes that viruses use to sink their teeth into systems just aren't there like they are on Windows boxes, which half the time haven't been updated at all since they installed the OS.
I think I'm reasonably safe from being hit in the face with a big fish when I leave my house... not because it's not possible, but because it's not likely.
For now, Macs are safer because there are fewer viruses around. We'll see when/if virus writers start targeting Mac OS X as much as Windows.
I suspect even then, Mac users will be safer.
Looks like antivirus publishers run amok.
I've been using MacOS 9.x and OSX for the last 4 years quite extensively. Browsing the web, downloading binaries, etc, etc, etc. In all that time, I've not been hit once by a virus that I can tell. I've consistently run Norton Antivirus, and it's never reported a damaged, infected, or otherwise bogus file. However, I've seen pc's in my office drop like flies. (Fortunately, I rarely need to use the immunocompromised little beasties, and when I do, I'm meticulous about my virus checking. I also don't run Outlook, EVER.)
Given the stress by Apple to move people to OS X and it's BSD underpinnings, it's obviously scary to Symantec, MacAffee, etc. that they might lose their chunk of money. Think about it, who ever heard of a virus checker for any *nix?
Find me a non-corporate virus hunter that will make the same claim and I'll buy it. Otherwise FUD.
Sure, the reason why somebody wrote Code Red was that there are so many IIS Servers. But why is it still around? Because of inherent vulnarabilities. Sure, there is a fix. But some people still haven't used it.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I doubt that you'd see many. Of course there are mac users that always log in as root and thus could execute a malitious (sp) program. Personally I think Macs are as vulnerable to virus as Linux, BSD and SUN boxes. More than likely they are susceptable to buffer overruns and bad cgi scripts gone wild. Of course a process that is run as nobody and owns nothing cannot do real damage (assuming it is not taken over by a hacker).
Only 'flamers' flame!
That was a bad article.
Macs do suffer from virus, and other malware, and the article does make the point that if a venerablity exists it will be exploited, regardless, however what it fails to point out are that there are fewer venerablities on a mac.
Also it fails to mention that macro virus's are MICROSOFT Viruses. dont use MS and you are fine.
The article should be Use Microsoft, Get viruses.
More FDU With this one folks
The article doesn't mention that the "7,000 macro viruses" attack Microsoft products (leaving uses of a Mac only as a web server completely protected from them)
Irrelevant: Ok, sure. If I run a web-server only (Windows) PC with Apache the daemon, I'm invulnerable, too. What does that have to do with Mac vs. PC. That's just a matter of software (which happens to be cross-platform). If you don't run Microsoft client software, you are protected.
nor does it quote any statistics about how many Mac vs. Windows viruses exist, and it doesn't address the real- world fact that Macs are hit with viruses far less often than Windows machines.
This one's a little more reasonable, but really, let's look at this article. It clearly is implying that the Mac, as a platform, is theorectically prone to virus attacks, like any system. Now, as long as it has only marginal market share it won't be a target, and won't have as many viruses, but that won't last long if everybody switches to it for that reason.
Mac vs. PC vs. Alpha vs. whatever is just not the place to be talking about security. Security, as of this moment, is not really a part of the hardware-layer of systems. If you want to talk about security, you need to talk about applications - like those made by microsoft - but those applications are becoming more and more cross-platform...
-Andrew
I would be more worried about the source of the statement. If Symantec is the one saying that Macs aren't immune to virii, I would look very closely when an OS X virus comes out. After all, "who watches the watchmen" and "things get broken,see? Accidents ... happen ..." and all that.
I would not only look at the source for the Mac virus, I would look at the writer (if he/she is ever found) and possible connections to Symantec.
Maybe I'm just a paranoid overreactor, but it's statements like that of Symantec that make me very suspicious of their intentions.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Macs are not inherently safer than PCs, however, Apple has a MUCH better track record when it comes to writing secure code than Microsoft does...
I think the first Mac OS X virus we will see will be an Apache exploit [good luck, guys].
-braxton
The story author, James Middleton, is a known troll and MS banner-waver, check out http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128907
Either that, or he is very susceptible to marketing hype from corporate interests, and taking it as news.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Once upon a time, I read some article saying that risk assessment was accomplished by examining the possible threats, the consequences of each threat and the likelihood of that threat actually happening. All of the threats discussed in the article are real, but the actual risk at this time is quite small. You also have to look at the malware tools available for Windows and Microsoft products that can automate virus creation, etc. giving the clueless the tools to cause a little havock. To my knowledge, there isn't anything analogous for the Macintosh, either OS 9 or OS X. Yes, the virus writers will go for the platform where they can do the most damage. But they'll also go for the platform that is easiest to write viruses for -- Windows!
considering the large number of obsessive mac-bashers in the world, i'm surprised that a malicious os x virus hasn't surfaced yet.
i'm not an expert, but i would imagine that at least one api in os x would be fertile ground for a virus; quartz executables, opengl scripts, postscript fonts, quicktime. all of these can be embedded in innocuous documents.
the level of risk is increased by the present sense of complacency. (and no, i'm not working for an anti-virus co).
If Apple had say 45% OS market share, I'm sure there would be many more Mac viruses rampaging across the net.
I hear that argument from Windows users all the time and I'm sure there's some truth to it. I mean it's obvious. But there's another part to the story. The part where Microsoft makes many of it's software products in an extremely vulnerable way in order to "give customers what they want."
Case in point. Why are Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, etc all able to open programmable documents which could contain potentially malicious code? In plain english, the way they've chosen to impliment scripting and macros makes them dead-on guilty of making extremely vulnerable products.
Do you remember back in the days before such things existed? Before the concept of the "macro virus"? How many virii were there back then? How vulnerable did you feel? What percentage of Windows users even had virus protection? And most importantly, don't you think it's strange that everyone just accepts this? All for the sake of the 0.02% of macro-writers out there.
So yes, there would be more Mac virii if there were more Macs, I buy that. But there would be less Windows virii if MS didn't knowingly and repeatedly sell fundamentally insecure software products.
So please don't lull yourself to sleep with the old "there are so many Windows virii because there are so many Windows boxes out there." Rather, wake up and realize that Microsoft has decidedly turned away from security in favor of whiz-bang features that look good printed on the software box.
And please pardon the shrill, crazed tone of the above. I've been holding that one in for a while I guess.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
"Obviously there are more PC-only viruses out there, but there are still over 7,000 macro viruses which can hit either Mac or PC platforms."
I run OS X. I do not have MS Office installed. I use Eudora for mail, and iCab for the web. What macro viruses can I get hit with? The statement above is based around the incorrect assuption that all Macs have MS Office installed on them.
Antivirus firm Symantec said that over three quarters of Mac users are under the illusion that they are not a target for virus writers and hackers.
As a Mac OS X user, I would agree with the statement "[I] am not a major target for virus writers and hackers."
I am definitely not under the impression that crackers could not go after my box. I take precautions as a result of that. However, I think that, as others on this story have pointed out, the sheer number os MS boxes out there make them a much more appealing target.
The article makes baseless assumptions and jumps in logic that no sane person would ever make.
i am just pointing out two flaws in it. There are more.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
There were *about *(!) 30 significantly different viruses (including at least a couple of worms) for Mac OS Classic (though I'm not counting Macro viruses like the ones that can infect Word and Hypercard, etc).
For example, many of the Word Macro viruses are cross platform.
Many of the origional viruses came out of fun and games at MacHack, people just trying to see if they could do it, but a few were modified and released into the wild by Script Kiddies after they appeared on some of the MacHack CD's, IIRC...
I think the last virus of any sigificance for Mac OS classic was Autostart-9805 in 1998.
So the story basically had no valid data. Talk about a troll post.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
The fact that all Operating Systems are subject to virus attacks cannot be argued, but some are more secure than others. There are three requirements for a virus to damage a user's machine. First, the user must acquire the virus (download, email attachement, etc). Second, the user must execute the infected application (thinking it's something else). Three, the user must have permission to modify/edit/delete the resources that the virus intends to attack.
Seriously, we hear the argument time and time again that Mac and Linux are less succeptable to Viruses than Windows, but what they really mean is point three from above: OS X and Linux to a better job of protecting system resources than Windows. So yes, Windows is more succeptable to catastrophic damage than OS X and Linux.
What really goes without saying here is that viruses follow the same pattern as useful software: 90+ percent of the population uses Windows, so target that population and you will see the most damage (or revenue for real software).
No one should really think that they are not Vulnerable to viri simply because they run a more secure OS. While a OS X or Linux virus executed by a local user with limited privledges cannot necessarily damage the system, they could still delete all of that user's personal data because that user has full permission on their stuff. I don't know about any of you, but if a virus wiped out my entire home directory, I'd be pretty pissed, and the fact that my system still booted up would be no consolation. =)
My point here is just that anyone who runs foreign applications on their machine from a user account that has write permissions on their own files is succeptable to a virus attack.
As long as Windows enjoys the overwhelming majority share of desktop operating systems, it will be the target of the majority of virus attacks. If that balance shifts towards the Mac, don't doubt that the virus writers won't prey on Mac users as well.
Come on, people. Get with the English program.
'j
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I've written legitimate Word and Excel macros (most of which wound up being incompatible the moment people upgraded to the next version), and there's no question Microsoft's implementation of macros makes it way too easy to write virii.
I wonder why nobody's done an Access virus yet? Access is unique in the Microsoft canon, since startup macros are often genuinely legitimate applications. Therefore, shutting macros down in Access would harm functionality.
Since most people with Office have Access lying around somewhere, I would think an Access virus would be a sure thing, and yet I haven't heard of one yet.
Just a matter of time?
D
The Mac, either Classic OS9 or OSX is generically not safer than Windows. The fact that Microsoft products are virus traps is not only because they are written without any real security in mind. It is also because the platform is so widley used. I can't substantiate this of course, but the sheer volume of Windows, IE, MSSQL and Outlook Virii does point to the fact that *a lot* of people are almost constantly on the lookout for ways to crack the system.
The Classic Mac OS had the one built-in but not for that purpose security measure in that it didn't have a commandline. This prevented anyone from logging in via SSH or whatever and rooting the system. The only widespread server on the Classic OS was Webstar and by default it didn't have any way of getting in via a CGI or buffer overflow unless you installed plug-ins, and even then you could crack the serve but had no way of doing anything else on the computer.
Mac OSX has had the occaisional security hole, the last one I remember (Apart from an IE hole but we won't talk about that) was the HFS case hole. Apple has simply been wise and turned off most of the daemons that are notoriously prone to sniffing etc by default such as telnetd, ftpd etc. If you turn these on, you stand a good chance of getting hacked.
Apple also has a built in Scripting System on both the Classic and OSX systems: AppleScript. The only reason that there have not been more Virii coming in on this channel is because there is no automatic way to execute one of these as there is on windows. You could however easily use social engineering (i.e. trick someone into downloading a bad Applescript application) and wreak havoc on that persons machine.
Anyone who has used Macs in the early '90s will remember many Virii such as mdbf or the CD autoplay worm, some of which were even spread on MacWorld CD's. Apple's loss of marketshare in the mid '90s coincided with less virii being written for the Mac. You work that out.
With the rising marketshare of the *new* Apple under Jobs and Tevanian with the new OS I am willing to bet that the attempts to crack the system will incease.
How Apple will eact to this will determine Apple reputation in this espect. Up until now Apple has been very good and fairly candid at reacting to and releasing patches and hasn't gone on any whining campaigns as MS has done in order to try to draw attention away from buggy products.
So, the article is not entirely wrong but still misses the true issue.
This piece of FUD was already picked apart on Maccentral yesterday.
In short, this was a piece of FUD backed by Symantec to try to sell more copyies of Norton Antivirus for the Mac. I've been using Mac's since the 80's and I've not had a virus since 1993 when I got a floppy infected with Scores and NVIR from an infected High school computer lab.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
I take issue with the statement that most mac users are generally less computer literate than windows uers. It is my experience that most mac users are at least slightly more IT literate than your average Windows PC owner.
Don't forget we're talking about a 90-95% market-share here for Windows, and it's my experience as an ISP support engineer that has drawn me to this conclusion.
I supported macs and pcs side by side, and without exception the complete no-hopers were PC users.
Most mac users tend to have macs for work, and make it their business to know at least the basic System maintenance tasks to ensure their livelihood.
The fact that the average (traditional) mac user's fascination with their computer's inner workings stops there is not an indication of ignorance, more that the computer itself is not the toy, it's the creative tools that run on it.
Last I knew there were in somewhere's between 40 and 50 classic virus' , many of which did not run on PPC macs and many which didn't run after system 9. The most prevalent virus on classic (not counting the auto start worm) was the MDEF virus and it's varients. And this virus wasn't even malicious, most of the varients simply annoyed you with random system beeps. Only the D varient (I may be wrong on this one) did anythign truly evil, causing internet programs to randomly crash.
Last I knew, OS X had 3 X specific virus'/vunerabilities and one of those was a flaw in IE
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Welcome to the dark side! And if you're ever confused on something, don't be afraid to ask, we want to keep new mac users, not make them feel dumb and scare them off.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
25000/95 = 263.158
263.158*5 = 1315.79.
Therefore we'd expect there to be over a thousand mac viruses. There are about 40 and most of those were HyperCard viruses. How do you account for the shortfall?
Hmmm... maybe market share isn't the only factor?
Also not that there are many many more people who hate MS and write viruses with the sole purpose of embarrassing MS. I suspect especially now with the Darwin kernal most people with the skill to write a virus probably won't do so because they have nothing against the company and can do a lot more damage to the immensely more evil MicroSoft with the same effort. Why go after the good guys?
I stole this Sig