We saw this in action in our Graphic Design classes. The class size was 25, with 20 Macs, and 5 PC's, we found the PC's were constantly being attacked. Fortunately the PC users had protected themselves, but eventually a mistake was made and one got infected. That person lost their computer for three days, and almost pulled down an ongoing project involving the entire class. Once he figured out what hit him, we started a search and found 15 of the Macs carried the virus. Once found it took only a few minutes to purge the malware from all the Macs. But...the original reaction from the Mac users was essentially "bummer pc dudes, buy a mac," however the pc folks pointed out their entire class project almost failed because of their not practicing safe computing. Next we pointed out that most of the folks they were working for outside the class were pc users, and every time they sent a presentation or passed a usb drive at a customer site, they most likely spread the infection. Panic ensued as they immediately begin reaching out to their clients. That was when they really learned the hard lesson of being a carrier. In the end only one Mac student purchased a form of protection.
So if you're a client using a service provided by a Mac environment, be very wary, and perhaps add into your requirements that the service provider demonstrate they are aware of this risk and have taken steps to minimize it. If they don't, then move on.
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We saw this in action in our Graphic Design classes. The class size was 25, with 20 Macs, and 5 PC's, we found the PC's were constantly being attacked. Fortunately the PC users had protected themselves, but eventually a mistake was made and one got infected. That person lost their computer for three days, and almost pulled down an ongoing project involving the entire class. Once he figured out what hit him, we started a search and found 15 of the Macs carried the virus. Once found it took only a few minutes to purge the malware from all the Macs. But...the original reaction from the Mac users was essentially "bummer pc dudes, buy a mac," however the pc folks pointed out their entire class project almost failed because of their not practicing safe computing. Next we pointed out that most of the folks they were working for outside the class were pc users, and every time they sent a presentation or passed a usb drive at a customer site, they most likely spread the infection. Panic ensued as they immediately begin reaching out to their clients. That was when they really learned the hard lesson of being a carrier. In the end only one Mac student purchased a form of protection. So if you're a client using a service provided by a Mac environment, be very wary, and perhaps add into your requirements that the service provider demonstrate they are aware of this risk and have taken steps to minimize it. If they don't, then move on.