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Apple Support Forums Suggest Malware Explosion
dotwhynot writes "According to ZDNet, the volume of in-the-wild malware reports on discussions.apple.com is truly exceptional. With the launch of the first malware DIY kit for OS X earlier this month, and now this, has the malware industry threat finally caught up with the growth of Apple, and what do Mac users need to do?"
Isn't it interesting that Mac malware is suddenly on the rise not long after the Mac App Store comes out. Now I'm not saying that Apple is creating or encouraging the creation of malware to try to scare people into using their walled garden. I'm just saying, isn't the timing interesting?
There's stories floating around about companies complaining because Apple is not distributing available security updates to their products, supposedly because of approvals. The App store is apparently not a good solution currently.
I was just talking with someone the other day that I had to tell three times that there are viruses out there for Macs before they stopped saying that the way to avoid getting a virus was to just get a Macintosh. Unless something changes, when Macs cross a critical threshold, they will be even more infested with viruses than Windows PCs. Not because Macs are not more secure, but because the combination of stupid users that you get on any platform that is above a certain market share and the Mac users who believe that because it is a Mac there are no viruses out there for it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The slightly different option is to default to only installing through the App store with an option for users to turn that off, perhaps in the Accounts section of System Preferences. This gives a compromise where people on Slashdot can use whatever method they want and naive users will be much more protected.
Remember that 99% of the users out there know very little about computers. They think a Computer Science degree or Computer Engineering degree means you "know how to fix computers." Kind of like an "electrical engineer" can come and wire your house or a "mechanical engineer" knows how to fix your car.
The question here is: how much do you protect users from their own naivety/stupidity/credulity (depending upon how you want to phrase it)?
I believe that in the long term, like it or not, the trend will be that the operating system will be closer to the walled garden approach for just this reason.