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Want Security? Make The Switch
Lord_Slepnir writes "Security firm Sophos Security has released a report claiming that Macs will be more secure than Windows for some time to come. The report listed the 10 most common kinds of malware, and noted that they can only infect Windows systems."
As more users make the switch, so will the malware coders.
That said, it will be years before OSX overtakes Windows, if it ever does. Still, with OSX's mature tried-and-true UNIX core, I don't see as many problems as with MS's OS.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Well sure... follow the money... There is no point in compromising a Mac but if you hack Windows you have a marketable product. After the pigs sprout wings and Macs take over the 95% market share lets see how many proffesonal hackers turn there attention away from Microsoft's products. Saying OSX is more robust than Windows XP is irelivant... where there is a will there is a way.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
Maybe the OS-dependent malware is on Windows but not MacOSX, but there are still some serious computer-delivered attacks that don't depend on the operating system. Social exploits like phishing and pay-forward scams still attack the gullible on any platform. Cross-site scripting exploits can still put web services such as PayPal and Amazon at risk. This has little to do with the platform, and I think many MacOSX fans are falsely smug over the whole thing.
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If you really want to follow the security through lack of marketshare model then you should install os/2 or dos.
When firefox came out, there werent any problems with it at all. Pops wouldnt happen as often. No 'ZOMG ACTIVEX WILL EAT YOUR FACE' or anything like that. But mostly because 95% of all people were using IE and firefox was about 2%. Now that firefox is more popular, people have found ways around it. Firefox is still great and they do a great job at patching it up (much better than IE). But the Macs are in the same boat. Its a small market right now, but as they get more popular, there will be viruses and exploits for it just like windows. The only argument is will they fix it faster than microsoft does?
Saying that the most common malware only effects Windows, therefore Macs are more secure is simply bad reasoning.
What matters is rate of contact and rate of infection after contact.
A well configured Windows machine, with a good up-to-date virus/spyware scanner and firewall which prevents unauthorized registry changes is pretty hard to actually infect.
I'm sure that "out of the box" Macs are better. But it's not "out of the box" that I care about. My concern is level of security during actual operation.
I have no problem believing that Macs are more resistant to malware, but this measure doesn't show that to necessarily be the case.
Why would I write a piece of malware that would only target a small segment of the market? If one wanted to further one's nefarious plans wouldn't it be smart to go after the biggest slice of the pie?
That would depend upon your goal, now wouldn't it? For botnets, it is probably too difficult compared to the return to go after OS X boxes, but for other types of malware it makes some sense to add OS X as a secondary vector for a cross-platform worm. If, for example, you're gathering credit card numbers and accounts to online stores, you'll get a better return from OS X boxes than from Windows machines since you eliminate the chunk that is pirated and running in the third world, and basically limit yourself to the wealthy first worlders, and usually even the higher end of that group. You also, unfortunately, are targeting a lot of the security expert crowd, almost guaranteeing early detection of your worm.
If, however, your goal is hactivism or prestige, well the first worm that targets OS X machines and actually propagates significantly in the wild will be big news and generate a lot of press. It is an ideal target, if you can pull it off.
There is plenty of motivation to attack OS X boxes, but the difficulty of doing so, due to more reasonable security and architectural choices and because the skillset of malware authors is usually very Window's platform specific has played a big part in making sure that it has not yet been a concern.
What does it all mean? Sort this out for me, Slashdot.
Most users are lazy, and they don't want to learn how to use new interfaces.
Well... We'd better not tell them about the Windows/Office Vista menu changes then.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I don't think you've not subscribed to the Slashdot "group think" since there is no such thing to subscribe (or not) to. From the sound of it you are in a niche market (professional graphics work) and probably more technically able than most graphic designers (hence your choice of Windows). But you are apparently not really into technology for what it can do overall. You're only into what it can do for your specific task. Considering that most graphic designers don't know much about networking, scripting or coding, they tend to prefer the Mac. Again, it doesn't sound like you're quite down at that level (not to disparage graphic designers, but the best of the lot rarely have any technical ability at all. They simply have great eyes and know how to use their apps).
.Net devel suite on your box and have downloaded the Windows source code via P2P to get things tuned right...). These failings don't really make either OS "bad" per se. But there are some simple facts to take into account:
For me... it's all about "free" in both senses of the word. I exclusively use Linux at home for everything. There are tons of applications that do everything I need. Since I don't need to go to print with my graphic work, GIMP works fine for me. As does GIMPrint for printing out family photos and the like. When it comes to the professional audio and video work I do, GIMP is leaps and bounds ahead of what the Windows platform provides and way cheaper than most decent Mac solutions. The amount of time spent getting mys systems configured (from source typically as I despise pre-packaged software) is not any greater than the amount of time I spent tweaking my Windows systems when I used that OS in the past. This is because for many of us, we like to get every ounce of performance out of our hardware and no matter what OS or platform we're on, we're going to investigate EVERY option all the way down to the code itself. Linux is not hard and the GUIs are much more polished and feature filled than anything that the Windows platform offers. But yes, you do have to spend some time learning the new approaches. I did and it was worth every second.
It still an argument that's stupid and pointless though. It's not about "Good OS" vs. "Bad OS". It's about a "Good for Me OS" vs. a Bad for Me OS". For me, Windows is too limiting and far too expensive when you factor in how much you have to spend on extra apps to actually make it useful. For you the GUI options on Linux didn't suit you, likely due to the learning curve and possibly due to the time you tried it (Development is moving fast and both GNOME and KDE are far better than the Explorer interface in my opinion). Linux also failed you in that you probably aren't the kind of person who likes to work all the way down to the metal to get the most out of your machine (again, not an insult just a basic fact based on what you posted. I don't know, so I can't say 100% that this is true. You might have the
1. I used Windows all the way from DOS/Win3.1 to XP and I only got hit with one exploit through a stupid move (putting my XP laptop directly on a DSL link in an emergency with no firewall at all Pre-SP2). I found that putting my Windows boxes behind a decent firewall (typically linux based) stopped a whole host of problems. Even without EVER using any antivirus software (I simply avoided Internet Explorer and any version of Outlook).
2. Nearly every Linux distro I've used has come with everything I've needed at a basic level and the only extras I ever install are typically because of my interests in the rarer fields of computing. Linux is certainly more complete when compared to Mac or Windows, but that's only if you're willing to put the time into learning it.
So there you have it. I hope you can see the wisdom in this piece and take no offense as none was meant.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Most hackers don't need a huge number of installs to stroke their ego. The opportunity to prove that OS X is just as vulnerable as Windows should be more than enough to motivate someone to release an OS X virus into the wild. Yet no one has done it.
There must be more at work here than OS X's small market share. OS X must be inherently more secure than Windows to not have a virus in the wild six years after its release. Certainly there are enough hackers out there who would love to show their prowess by writing an OS X virus, even for the relatively small number of OS X installs that exist; but nobody has been able to do it yet.