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Computer 'Worms' Turn on Macs
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Macs have been laregly immune to the viruses, worms and malware that have plagued PCs, but the Mac's recent popularity uptick has meant that 'bad guys appear to be casing the joint,' the Wall Street Journal reports. Among the signs: two recently discovered worms and the discovery of a vulnerability in Mac OS X that leaves Safari open to a hack. A Symantec engineer predicts a 'gradual erosion' of the idea that Macs are a safer operating system than Windows. 'Some security experts believe hackers are becoming more interested in writing nasty code for Macs precisely because of reports of its relative immunity to security woes,' the WSJ reports. 'Apple itself has gone out of its way not to promote the Mac's relative safety, lest it tempt hackers to prove the company wrong. Apple declined to discuss the topic of security in depth for this article.'"
Yes, if there's anyone who can stand to make a quick buck off security worries, it's the so-called "security software" businesses themselves. Of course, they all love to insinuate that all operating systems play on the same level field. (So the only way to make sure you're safe is to BUY OUR [poorly written] PRODUCT!) Now, because a couple people came up with a proof-of-concept exploit, they get their chance to say "See, Mac OS X isn't any more secure than Windows is!" But of course, we know that there's hardly any truth behind those statements. Sure, all software systems have holes, and flaws, and bugs. But depending on how the software is written, the threats from those vulnerabilities can be mitigated and even made altogether impotent. I'm not an OS X user, but I do exclusively use operating systems that live in the same family tree, the modern BSD Unixen. And I can state from experience that these systems are inherently more secure than some other commercial operating systems, simply because of the way they are written. (For example, the level of source auditing found in OpenBSD, etc. etc.)