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McAfee Feigns Fear at Mac Security
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports that McAfee has just come out with a report which asks the question 'Is Mac OS X the Next Windows?'." They appear to be attempting to scare consumers into buying anti-virus software for OSX. Blogger Arik Hesseldahl breaks down their claims: "First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs ... When you take into account the ongoing growth in general PC ownership, even if Apple pushes its annual unit sales to 12 million or more by 2010, its share of the overall market will still account for about 4%, leaving Windows the far more tasty target."
"...are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer..."
While this is true in some segments of the market (*nix geeks migrating to OS X), it is by no means true of other segments. There are many designers/graphics pros who choose to use Macs. However, this in no way implies that they actually understand technology. Some do. Many don't. The choice to use Macs is typically because either they have always used Macs or that is what they were trained on.
This guy's the limit!
The antivirus companies are scared. Why? When Vista comes out, potentially their market is going to quickly dry up. So they are trying to convince Mac users that they need their software.
Personally, I don't trust any of the antivirus companies one inch. It's big business, and it is in their interests that there are security threats and viruses around. Talk about conflict of interest...
The Witty Worm demonstrated that a market niche as small as perhaps 12,000 systems can be vulnerable to a worm based attack. The Macintosh is not inherently safe due to niche status. Anybody making this claim is seriously not keeping up with the field of information security.
Worms that have targeted other niche platforms including web servers and database servers of various kinds have also demonstrated that platforms with a few hundred thousand deployed systems (much smaller than the deployed base of Macintosh systems) are vulnerable to worm attacks.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Seems to me that virus writers would want to target Macs because of all the talk about how Macs are less succeptable to viruses. It would be more prestigious to create a virus that spreads like wildfire through the "impenetrable" Mac community than to create one for the "wide open" Windows community.
Just my $0.02...
Bullshit. McAfee and Symantec have been engaging in a mis-information campaign against Mac security for the past year trying to get people to buy their junky wares. Is the Mac 100% impenetrable? No, but given that OS X has now been around for 5 years or so and no script kiddie has been able to create ANYTHING remotely close to dangerous (yeah, there are a few small, barely threatening programs), then why all of a sudden are certain people with a VESTED interest in selling AV software trying to scare Mac users into spending money unnecessarily? Let's just stop saying "Oh, when OSX is more popular then it will be a popular target." That argument is CRAP. What bigger ego booster could you get if you created a successfully propogating worm or spyware app for Mac OS X, a supposedly supreme Fort Knox of operatin system?
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I'm a long-time Mac admin and user. I don't have AV software on my home machine and as of now have no plans to either. I think Symantec, McAfee, Gartner and a few others are teh ones who have a hidden agenda.
All to pr0n you need: http://excaliburfilms.com/partner/mainaffiliate.c
I'm sorry, but McAfee putting out a security report is like Exxon putting out an environmental assessment for Alaskan drilling. Slight conflict of interest there. It doesn't matter who they quote. They simply cannot be trusted because making a profit will always be their number one priority.
As long as they turn off the administrator account and back up their personal files it doesn't matter. It is incredibly hard to write a Mac virus that does anything malicious, especially to the system. The easiest thing a virus could do (and it would not be easy at all) would be to mess up a user account and delete personal files Mac users are also not the cutsey dumbasses you see in Apple commercials. For the most part they educated and know their way around their computer. Most would know something wrong is happening if the administration security prompt pops up asking for their password. The ones that don't know wouldn't even know how to access and turn on their administration account.
And forget about the old market share argument explaining why Macs don't get malicious viruses. Don't you think there would be some prestige for any writer who could create the first malicious Mac virus? Especially with Apple and others touting it's security for years? How come it hasn't happened yet?
Saying that anti-virus is vital piece of protection on platform that hasn't yet seen any serious viruses IS spreading FUD.
Nice Mac you got there. Would be a shame if anything were to... you know... "happen" to it. Just sayin'...
As a cross-platform user I'm tired of these popular memes on slashdot. Do you think all those affluent mac users work in creative areas? A number of us work in IT developing and/or supporting software on the windows platform but prefer macs at home.
Let me try to get this through your thick head. OS X has a completely different security model from windows. It is based on a BSD and System V. You will find both open source and closed source unix components on OS X.
There is always a risk of some virus appearing and wiping out your personal data or some catastrophic hardware failure and because of this, you should backup often. It would require a great deal of user interaction to compromise the entire machine as nobody runs as root unlike XP.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I consider myself primarily a Mac user, even though I typically use Linux, OS X, and Windows every day. I do the vast majority of my work on my Apple laptop, and it is the platform I feel most comfortable with. The interesting thing is I've only been a Mac user since the summer of 2004. At my last job we purchased a large XServe G5 cluster (256 nodes), which at the time was probably the 3rd largest Apple cluster in a university. I used a Linux workstation at this point, and I was having doubts about running OS X on a cluster. I flew out to the WWDC while the ink was still drying on the PO. I was impressed with the developers tools I saw at WWDC, and with the whole OS experience. I ordered a iMac G5 for my desk the very day they were available for sale. We had to work at porting some applications to OS X, and there were a few issues with being one of the earliest large HPC clusters (especially one that ran large MPI applications over Ethernet - lots of early Mac clusters ran embarassingly parallel stuff, or infinniband line VT). I took a new job where I spend a good chunk of time writing scietific sofware for Linux based clusters - I insisted my employeer provide me with a Mac (we have about 1,200 employees and run about 40% Mac desktops, but no one in my group had a Mac).
Hmm... I'm sympathetic to your position, but not your reasoning. Except for the occasional trust funder, just about everyone here is selling their services in exchange for cash. If you leave one job for another, higher paying job, are you profit motivated, and thus no longer to be trusted?
I suspect that rather than their motivation to make a profit, it is really the years of strangely incongruous (for a security company) and untrustworthy behavior like pioneering the pop-up browser advertisements and so forth that have caused you to trust not McAfee.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Mac users by and large have become complacent when it comes to basic security principles. They are even more at risk of infecting their machine when viruses and other threats start to spread on the Mac platform.
I think the problem wasn't that Mac or Windows users were any more complacent than each other, but one system was more prone to viruses and malware.
One of these systems had the following problem:
1. Getting spyware by visiting webpage with default security options
2. Getting viruses just by opening or previewing an email
3. Getting a Virus just by being connected to the internet.
Both systems still can have:
1. Viruses from opening attachments from email
2. Viruses from opening files downloaded from the internet
The first set of issues was nothing that you would consider to be safe security practices. That is unreasonable to think the user could not do these things within reason (Yeah... Back when the Outlook express viruses were going around I turned off my preview pane and avoided unknown senders like the plague but this is a hard practice to keep 100% reliable (you know accidentally opening an email from someone you know or hitting enter key at the wrong time).
Yes, one of those operation systems developers did fix the problem with many various security patches, but the other one never had such widespread issues and was usually quick to address any security hole.
I use OS X primarily for my surfing and email, but I still keep my habits from the windows days.
Don't download files from questionable sources.
Don't open emails attachments from questionable sources.
If I don't do either of those, then I believe I should not have to have an anti-virus.
Plain. Meet simple.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
There is, but they're going to have difficulty because of the Macs LOW MARKET SHARE. Until a large percentage of machines your Mac would communicate with when transfering the virus are Macs too, a Mac virus isn't going to get off the ground.
OS 9 had a ton of viruses and they had even a smaller market share than OS X.
For some reason I don't think market share is related to this.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Building your own computer makes you technically competent in the same way that paint-by-numbers makes you an artist.
The appeal for Macs is different for each person, some people like Virginia Tech like to make super-computers, others like to composite special effects, and there are lots of people who just want to be able to use their computer with having the OS get in their way because of shoddy design. And some people just think the computers are pretty.
Stop pretending that Windows users are somehow the salt of the earth while Mac users are elitist, especially considering you use the exact same techniques to try to convince people that Windows or Linux is somehow better.
Accept the fact some people like the Mac, it's effective for what they want to do, and the hardware is not 2x as expensive and you know it and the G5 and Intel Duo Core are very powerful parts of very well-designed machines.
If everyone who had a Mac sold it and bought a PC would life be suddenly better for you? If not, then shut up.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Thank you for your concern regarding OS X and viruses. Because of this information you have put forth, I will pay more attention to the coming virus threat to OS X. If, and when that should happen, I will be sure to follow your advice and get some anti-virus software. Unfortunately for you, it won't be your product. I'll download ClamavX instead.
Thank you for your concern,
A very "frightened" OS X user.
Two problems with your argument.
1. McAfee isn't a person. Most people aren't profit-oriented. Yes, most people have to work, but the pursuit of profit is not the primary focus of most people. On the other hand, most corporations seek nothing *but* profits.
2. While corporations have been known to do the right or promote honest facts, from time to time, this is not one of those times. Using fear is one of the most vulgar and appalling of manipulation techniques.
Any time a corporation tries to spread fear, and that corporation just happens to sell a product that directly addresses that fear, it's wise to become weary, because it's in that corporation's best interest to overstate the fear.
McAfee is just trying to build a market (which is a completely reasonable thing for a corporation to do), but in this specific case, they are trying to build a market which does not exist, and trying to force it into existence will have a net negative impact on the rest of us, as tends to be the case with FUD.