“The Mac platform is more secure than Windows and will continue to be so,” David Morgenstern writes for eWeek. “Certainly, we can all agree that Mac users hate Windows. On the other hand, most Windows users hate the Macintosh and, moreover, Mac users. And those Mac ads.”
MacDailyNews Take: One big difference: The majority of Mac users have used WIndows (at work, school, etc.) and have therefore made an informed choice to use the superior Mac. On the flip side, the vast majority of Windows sufferers who “hate” the Macintosh and Mac users have no idea what they’re missing. They didn’t choose Windows, it’s all they know. Most every “Mac-hater” crumbles when posed one simple question, “When is the last time you used a Mac, if ever?” Nobody likes to be told they wasted their money, time, and effort on the wrong platform and that they’re using an inferior operating system, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Don’t hate the Mac or Mac users for telling you the facts. Windows-only users: Use a Mac — really use it for awhile, for real tasks, not just noodling around with it for a few minutes in an Apple Store — then, and only then, will you be able to make an informed choice. Go ahead, we dare you to really use a Mac (because we know what’ll happen when you do).
Morgenstern continues, “The Mac is a better platform when it comes to security and malware attacks… Take a look at the exploits actually seen in the wild on the Wild List. In March, the group recorded 766 different viruses, with a supplemental group bringing the total to 1,709 titles. None are on the Mac. A search through security vendor F-Secure’s Virus Description Database for the word ‘Macintosh’ brings up 24 total hits. Most of them are MS Word macro viruses, and five were hoax reports.”
Morgenstern writes, “So based on these figures, it would take a lot of attacks to make a dent in the Mac’s good name and challenge the current record on the PC side. However, by my reckoning of the installed bases for each platform, there should be many more exploits for the Mac. Depending on how you calculate the number—2, 3, 5 or whatever percent—shouldn’t there be that corresponding percentage of viruses on the Mac in these lists?”
“A side note: Some folks estimate the number of Mac users—ones who actually buy things or read content on the Web—is a greater figure than we would find by looking at pure sales or when looking at the entire PC installed base. Mostly, this means that there’s evidence that Mac users are undercounted,” Morgenstern writes. “…Also, it’s not as if Mac users are hiding off the Web. They are exposed in the same way Windows users are.”
Morgenstern writes, “Credit must go to Apple, according to wireless security blogger Glenn Fleishman, based in Seattle… Fleishman said that while there have been exploits demonstrated on the Mac, many are very difficult to accomplish out in the wild. ‘No one has come up with a good vector to spread infection on the Mac; that’s what stymies people,’ he said. ‘Even if you came up with the world’s best Wi-Fi exploit drive around the city, and actually take ownership of 100 Macs, even then, with root-level access on a Mac, you can’t just deploy [an exploit] exponentially or even arithmetically. You can’t even add one more,’ he said.”
“I believe there’s another reason for the Mac’s amazing security record, beyond the technical and beyond any protection afforded by its supposed market ‘obscurity.’ The protection is cultural. It’s that legendary ‘strong’ installed base of loyal users,” Morgenstern writes. “Consider this: The Mac is the most homogeneous computing platform in the world. That should make it the most vulnerable. Instead, it has the strongest real-world record when it comes to exploits. Surely, that record will continue.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve said repeatedly: There are zero-percent (0%) of viruses for the Mac OS X platform that should, logically, have some 10-16% of the world’s viruses if platforms’ install bases dictate the numbers of viruses. The fact that Mac OS X has zero (0) viruses totally discounts “security via obscurity.” 22+ million Mac OS X installs is not “obscure” at all, but 6+ years of users surfing unimpeded certainly is “secure.” There should be at least some Mac OS X viruses. There are none. The reason for this fact is not attributable solely to ‘obscurity,’ it’s attributable to superior security design.
What’s that putrid burning smell coming from eWeek?
Flamebait.
“Certainly, we can all agree that Mac users hate Windows. On the other hand, most Windows users hate the Macintosh and, moreover, Mac users. And those Mac ads.”
And on the third hand, I think we can all agree that everyone who makes generalizations is an ass.
It’s pleasant to read articles that reinforce my own beliefs… Gimmie more! More! More! More!
“The world is too complicated.” — Barry Markowicz
I sincerely doubt that the Mac installed base is “homogeneous”. Rich folks, poor folks, left, right, man, woman, child, elderly, Christian, non-Christian — I don’t see much homogeneity there.
Priceless excerpts from eWeek’s talkback:
“The whole thing is comparing apples and oranges. I really wish we could get off the whole thing, Mac’s time will come eventually. I hope all of these opinion pieces will be recanted when it happens. Maybe, just maybe, the productivity we Windows users get and the wealth of software we can use makes up for the occasional bug. And, any PC user with half a brain can VERY easily protect themselves – so all of these exploits rarely, if ever, affect us.”
“The MAC (sic) is more secure because fewer people write code targeted at the MAC. Just like most commercial software developers people who write viruses are looking to penetrate the biggest market. When the Windows platform outnumbers the MAC more than 10 to 1 which platform would you write code for? The whole argument is nonsense.”
“I recently had some communication with a journalist who was setting up a Mac for her daughter. I spoke about several points that are addressed in this article. Many people have written her and boast how there have been “Zero attacks on OS X. My concern is how many in the Mac community have a false sense of security and denial that is based on the minimalist activity. Anyone who reads and understands what Apple patches have been made, would understand that there are indeed vulnerabilities.”
The FUD machine is alive and well.
The Mac platform is more secure than Windows and will continue to be so
FACT
1: 95% of exploits/vunerabilities are in software other than the OS. Admin password installs anyone?
2: IBM just released information that publically known vunerabilities represent only 1/20 of vunerabilities found. This is being gauged upon how many are fixed in house, penetration tested and sold on the market to anti-malware firms/government agencies.
3: Currently Mac OS X vunerabilites far exceed Linux and Windows. Apple has released over 110 fixes this year alone.
4: Market share is directly responsible for how many of these vunerabilites actually make it to public exploits and malware.
Quote OhReally: “Currently Mac OS X vunerabilites far exceed Linux and Windows.”
Name them….
“Apple has released over 110 fixes this year alone.”
By definition these vulnerabilities have been fixed. (= not there anymore)
eWeek’s guess is better than MDN’s … “2, 3, 5 or whatever percent” vs “some 10-16%”. All things considered, I’d guess a reasonable number might be more like 1% or the total. Meaning, somewhere out there there ought to be one or two dozen bits of malware salivating over my DP Mac. OK, maybe only seven or eight. Anyone seen one? Not an exploit, an actual reproducing exploit. No, me neither.
About the numbers of Mac haters vs Windows haters … there are many more of the latter – folks who hate the system they use but can’t/won’t justify a change.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod Cast
‘No one has come up with a good vector to spread infection on the Mac; that’s what stymies people,’ he said. ‘Even if you came up with the world’s best Wi-Fi exploit drive around the city, and actually take ownership of 100 Macs, even then, with root-level access on a Mac, you can’t just deploy [an exploit] exponentially or even arithmetically. You can’t even add one more,’
This is what I’ve been saying all along. Every time some demonstrates some “exploit”, it’s always one guy manually taking over one machine. There’s no real threat there unless the process can be automated and jump from Mac to Mac.
MacDailyNews: Don’t you ever get tired of preaching to the choir?
‘No one has come up with a good vector to spread infection on the Mac; that’s what stymies people,’ he said. ‘Even if you came up with the world’s best Wi-Fi exploit drive around the city, and actually take ownership of 100 Macs, even then, with root-level access on a Mac, you can’t just deploy [an exploit] exponentially or even arithmetically. You can’t even add one more,’ he said.”
Uh what about the 100 pwned Mac’s?
There is this serious misconcpetion that exploits=viruses that it’s the goal of all malware writers to take over as many machines in short order as possible.
Hackers have different objectives and not necessary going to announce their presence in your box by foolishly making a spam/virus bot out of it. They may just prefer to spy on your porn, send some, grab your passwords or watch you through your iSight camera.
Spam bots are desired by hackers in poor foriegn countries who sell them to marketeers. Mac’s hardly make a presence in poor countries, they are using pirated versions of Windows on homemade hardware. OS X requires a rather expensive hardware purchase and Apple tracks your usage by your computers id number. (Mac OS X phones home quite regularly)
It’s been admited that 2 out of 3 IT personel still have access to their former employers networks and computers. Also 2 out of 3 IT personal have admitted reading sensitive company data/emails.
Read more articles online and learn the truth.
http://cve.mitre.org/
http://nvd.nist.gov/
enjoy
So if -everyone- that makes generalizations is an ass… doesn’t that include you, Toasty?
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‘most Windows users hate the Macintosh and, moreover, Mac users.’
What a load of male bovine feces. Most windows users don’t know dick about the Mac and many have lsome interested in them. As in the real world there are a certain (low) percentage that hate the ones that ‘think different’.
Nuster=Buster without his glasses
The article mentions reports of successful “zombie attacks”? Is there any evidence that there ever were any?
“The Mac platform is more secure than Windows and will continue to be so”.
This is what I call NEWS. Thanks a lot for the info.
Does eWeek mention anything about Atari?
‘most Windows users hate the Macintosh and, moreover, Mac users.
Thats total B*llsh*t
Most window users do not really no the difference, but as they are exposed, thru marketing, friends that use, iPod ect, many are becoming very curious and open towards the Mac.
Thats my .02 cents, from a 10 month switcher, and a converter of 6 people since,(okay , 3 were for family that I bought)
“any PC user with half a brain can VERY easily protect themselves “
Yes, this is one of the standard defences of the foaming-at-the-mouth Windows fanboys. It must make the smarter heads at Microsoft cringe: insulting your customer base is very foolish.
Now, Vint Cerf, the “father of the Internet”, has estimated that one quarter of the PCs connected to the internet is in a botnet:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070125-8707.html
One thing is certain: one quarter of those using PCs can’t be described as having less than “half a brain”, as the Windows fanboy posting above so rudely put it.
No, they’re not stupid at all. They’ve been let down by their software vendor, viz. Microsoft. That vendor has been negligent and irresponsible, and what it has finally done is too little too late.
On the other hand, most Windows users hate the Macintosh
—
In other words, this guy is not living in reality and hasn’t been out of the house. Most PC users think of Apple the way they think of… HP or Sony.. a computer company… that also happens to make a cool music player.
This is just nerd drama bullshit.
PS. Mac more secure than Windows? Okay. No shit. The sky is Blue.
Actually this in the original article is false:
“Certainly, we can all agree that Mac users hate Windows. On the other hand, most Windows users hate the Macintosh and, moreover, Mac users. And those Mac ads.”
A few foolish people, and a number of Redmond lackeys in the media, undoubtedly hate the Macintosh. (And quite possibly they hate Mac–and Linux and BSD users–too.)
But *most* certainly don’t. Most Windows users have a distinctly disenchanted view of the OS they have to use–with good reason–and are far more likely to hate Windows than to hate the Mac.
Apple tracks your usage by your computers (sic) id number. (Mac OS X phones home quite regularly)
Utter bullshit!
=:~)
Most windows user has no clue there is another platform. Most don’t know there are other OS out there.
“[Macintoshes] are exposed in the same way Windows users are.”
This is not true. Macintoshes are more exposed because the vast majority of Macintoshes have NO virus detector installed, versus the almost total coverage for corporate PCs.
BTW I never feel hatred to Windows user. I don’t even hate Windows. I just find Windows annoying each time I have to use it because I know there is an easier way.
@SmartGuy
“Spam bots are desired by hackers in poor foriegn countries who sell them to marketeers. Mac’s hardly make a presence in poor countries, they are using pirated versions of Windows on homemade hardware.”
Get your facts correct: it’s been documented that approximately 1/3 of all spam originates from the US and is growing. It’s not poor foreign countries but industrialized countries that are having their PC’s taken over, plus the fact of the availability of broadband/always on connections.
You’re just spewing FUD that the M$ loving/Mac hating mindless zombies are re-spiting out.
BTW, hackers make money being able to get information from hundreds of computers, they’re not interested in getting john doe’s personal information one at a time.
Everything you’ve written is just plain FUD.
MDN: Well said.
“The Mac platform is more secure than Windows and will continue to be so”
In other news, George Bush is a Republican, my daughter forgot to do her homework last night, and the sky is blue.
It’s good though to see articles out there that are informing other computer users.
no longer my eMac: Exactly. Hee-haw!
But some people are more ass than all others combined. Mostly all of the time in some ways.
Holy smokes, The riff raff has sure crawled out from under the rock to spread their hatred of the Mac platoform in that article’s talkback. They should listen to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at “All Things Digital 5” and then ask themselves, “What kind of idiot am I to be turning this into a religious war?”
Macs are more secure, get over it. It should have something over the PC, no? So PCs have lots of great things too. Big whoop that Macs are more secure. PC users sure seem to be a heck of a lot less secure about themselves. That group seems to have proven that. I guess their computers ought to reflect that.
Holy smokes, The riff raff has sure crawled out from under the rock to spread their hatred of the Mac platoform in that article’s talkback. They should listen to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at “All Things Digital 5” and then ask themselves, “What kind of idiot am I to be turning this into a religious war?”
Macs are more secure, get over it. It should have something over the PC, no? So PCs have lots of great things too. Big whoop that Macs are more secure. PC users sure seem to be a heck of a lot less secure about themselves. That group seems to have proven that. I guess their computers ought to reflect that.
Holy smokes, The riff raff has sure crawled out from under the rock to spread their hatred of the Mac platoform in that article’s talkback. They should listen to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at “All Things Digital 5” and then ask themselves, “What kind of idiot am I to be turning this into a religious war?”
Macs are more secure, get over it. It should have something over the PC, no? So PCs have lots of great things too. Big whoop that Macs are more secure. PC users sure seem to be a heck of a lot less secure about themselves. That group seems to have proven that. I guess their computers ought to reflect that.
Holy smokes, The riff raff has sure crawled out from under the rock to spread their hatred of the Mac platoform in that article’s talkback. They should listen to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at “All Things Digital 5” and then ask themselves, “What kind of idiot am I to be turning this into a religious war?”
Macs are more secure, get over it. It should have something over the PC, no? So PCs have lots of great things too. Big whoop that Macs are more secure. PC users sure seem to be a heck of a lot less secure about themselves. That group seems to have proven that. I guess their computers ought to reflect that.
Steve: “The riff raff has sure crawled out from under the rock . . .”
No doubt. My favorite troll so far:
“Mac’s are more secure for the same reason the pile of old wood in my unfenced backyard is secure; why bother? You see information on exploits being published that could be used to breach Macs, but nobody bothers. Why? Because nothing important is done on a Mac. They are not the computers of choice for business and finance. There is nothing worth exploiting. Regardless of Apple’s market share, you won’t see people hacking into them until people put Macs to good use.
If you want to cause trouble, you want to do it were it counts, and let’s face it, Macs and Mac users don’t count in the modern world.”
What an asshat.
As I said in another thread here. There are malware and virus for OS that have tenth of a percentage point of market share.
Mac OS X has 5 to 6 HUNDRED TIMES more market share of those OSes: they do have malware written for them and working, Mac OS X not.
The market share % and “Mac are so few” is such an idiocy only idiots still grip to those (false) hypothesis.
Even the Linux version tailored for installation on iPods (some couple hundred users having tried in the world so far) has a virus. 200 (that’s two hundreds) users. Even idiots should realize Mac OS X is WAY bigger a target than that and still: NO MALWARE IN THE WILD.
The writer nails it: no vector for an exponential infection. No vector? No malware. Market share argument is for idiots.
Don’t you ever get tired of preaching to the choir?Not being in the choir, don’t you ever get tired of reading this site to safisfy your masochism?
“The protection is cultural. It’s that legendary ‘strong’ installed base of loyal users..”
Hmm, sort of like a neighborhood watch program. I like that idea. Mac users looking out for each other.
I do recall that after that Leap.A thingy was posted, users were warning each other off from the link within a few minutes. And there was that guy who unofficially patched a bunch of the MoAB flaws using APE…
This makes a good case for Apple aiming for slow, steady market share growth that will allow new users to grow into this culture as they join. Too many new Mac users at once could result in another Windows-like culture of chaos and everyone for himself.
Most old time Windows users who know what a Mac was 10 years ago, hates the Mac. Most Windows users I come into contact with have never heard of the Mac.
One lady who thinks of herself as informed, dislikes the Mac because “its too different”.
I’ve inadvertently convenced her two sons (18 and 20 years old) to get Macs – this was done simple by letting them use my MBP for a little while. Two of their friends -15 and 18 – also are planning to get Macs.
Another friend –a Windows user from v.1 loves the Mac but says its too easy to use and want to get Linux “just for the geeky challenge”.
“too easy to use”
The only things too easy to use are drunk female celebrities.
I still don’t understand the mentality of these Windows users. They make stupid comments like, “Well, if MAC (sic) is so secure, why do they need all those security updates?”
You know, I may live in a pretty nice neighborhood, but that does NOT mean I’m going to leave my car and house unlocked. Extra, enhanced, and fixed security is always nice to have.
Some Windows users are like children. They say a stupid, “offensive” statement about Mac or its users. A Mac user responds in kind. The Windows user thinks Mac users are smug.
How about this, Windows users? STOP being a-holes and enjoy your dual-core machines that constantly have to waste one core on real-time AV scans.
Gotta love the “More >” link for Talkback on that eWeek page:
Active Server Pages error ‘ASP 0126’
Include file not found
/talkback/0,1931,p=1&s=26008&a=208733,00.asp, line 317
The include file ‘/component/talkback_component/0,1199,p=1&s=26008&a=208733,00.asp’ was not found.
I am homogenous, I should know! That is how you spell me!
Tacitus,
I went to your links and found it odd that they didnt list any of the exploits in the latest offering from MS? What gives?
That’s exactly right. This author is well informed. Even if a hacker could “exploit” a Mac, there’s not much the hacker can do that is worth the effort. Macs are more secure than Windows PCs, not because of “obscurity” but because Windows is the “low hanging fruit.”
To those who still think OS X has a lot of security holes…go and learn the difference between a vulnerability and an exploit…for starters.
OS X = vulnerabilities are found, and patched before they turn into exploits
Windows = vulnerabilities turn into exploits, then chaotically get patched…after millions of systems are infected in many cases.
>”I sincerely doubt that the Mac installed base is “homogeneous”. Rich folks, poor folks, left, right, man, woman, child, elderly, Christian, non-Christian — I don’t see much homogeneity there.”
Not sure if that was sarcastic or not…
I think what he means by that statement is that the platform is homogeneous – In other words, most Mac OS installs/configurations (at least at the OS level) are pretty much the same, and that this should *in theory* make it more vulnerable (less variation to work around). In the Win world there is OS chaos – everyone has a myriad of who knows what running it’s tentacles through the OS. I believe this is what he means by homogeneous – standardization of the core OS. And, of course, as he points out, this has done nothing to blemish the Macs stellar security rep.
It is sad that you removed my previous posting here. It had no swearing and pushed no political agenda. Evidently freedom of speech about a pseudo operating system like OSX is not in the cards for this website.
Guess you want to make sure everyone drinks the coolaid but doesn’t read the truth. Apple produces an extremely overpriced product that is full of security holes. Pretending that this isn’t true is like repeating the sky is green and expecting it to be true.
Oh well, this posting will probably be removed too. Bury the truth before people find and out and run away from Apple.
I see we have the usual trolls on here.
Macs are the most secure machines on the net full stop. (period for those who don’t know what a full stop is).
You can say what you like “Mac realist” but until there is a virus, worm or trojan floating around on the web that can eat it’s way onto millions of Macs and wreak havoc that fact won’t change.
Everything else you spout is just pure speculation.
Shogun
It’s pleasant to read articles that reinforce my own beliefs… Gimmie more! More! More! More!
Funny, but the idea that the Mac is intrinsically far more secure than Windows is not a belief: it is a fact. No amount of anti-Apple FUD, no amount of stammering and sputtering about “market share” will change the FACT that Unix, as a basis for an OS, kicks the ever loving crap out of Windows in every way shape and form, especially in security.
As an additional point, the nail in the coffin for “security thru obscurity” is the fact that since it’s inception, the Linux code base and any and all apps that run on it are completely open to anyone with the programming skills. The result? To this day, not a single Blaster style attack creating hordes of spambots, no self propagating trojans running DOS attacks, no viruses.
Which leads me to this point…
Does anyone in the tech world recall the actual age of OS X? The shaky nature of it’s Beta and even the initial release? If there were exploits and security holes in OS X that rivaled Windows, surely those on the Dark Side would have found them by now? Should we not right now be knee deep in exploits, viruses and trojans for the Mac if ANY of the claims concerning the nature of OS security coming from the WIndows camp were true in slightest?
Anyone who talks about security issues for the Mac rivaling Windows being “just a matter of time/market share” simply has no idea what they are talking about.
Magic Word: “army”, as in an army of Apple warriors armed with facts, not FUD.
I hope my inclusion of the Magic Word pissed somebody off.
SmartGuy
Spam bots are desired by hackers in poor foriegn countries who sell them to marketeers. Mac’s hardly make a presence in poor countries, they are using pirated versions of Windows on homemade hardware.
For a SmartGuy you seem have no idea how the internet works.
Magic Word: “needed”, as in a vector is needed on Macs for exploit propagation, and the Mac does not have one. Full Stop.
<b>Toasty Os
<italics>No doubt. My favorite troll so far:</italics>
“Mac’s are more secure for the same reason the pile of old wood in my unfenced backyard is secure; why bother? You see information on exploits being published that could be used to breach Macs, but nobody bothers. Why? Because nothing important is done on a Mac. They are not the computers of choice for business and finance. There is nothing worth exploiting. Regardless of Apple’s market share, you won’t see people hacking into them until people put Macs to good use.”
Just another idiot that doesn’t know how the internet works, Toasty Os. Good catch. Is it really his contention that the reason thousands of home Windows boxes are turned into spam bots everyday is because Windows is big in the corporate world? It is also his contention that DOS attacks made using those boxes are “exploiting” anything other than Microsoft’s shitty security?
DOS bots are used for extortion. Any black hatter or internet Mafia type that could turn OS X into bots would do it in a heartbeat to maximise the effectiveness of their DOS attacks to better extort online businesses. A DOS attack doesn’t give a shit what OS is running in the business, the point is to Deny Service! Neither does it matter what OS is generating the attack.
The idea that there is something of value in Windows exploits themselves or that Blaster and other trojans and viruses are about getting something of value contained in Windows itself is sheer idiocy,which is what this dork appears to be saying.
I treat my PCs with common senses, hence they still worked like a charm (even my old 2002 PC).
I tried Mac, liked it, and switched. But I dispise some mac users and those mac ads.
The way some ex-PC people here childishly bashing PCs for their misfortunes gave me big pictures on why their PCs failed in the first place.
“Oh, but I’ve been in PC field for 20 years!! I know what I’m doing!” How long have you been in a certain field doesn’t necessarily contribute on your skills or your your common senses.
Bad carpenters blame their tools…