For several years now I've been putting up with ridiculous claims by Mac advocates that Mac OSX is completely invulnerable to any sort of viruses, etc. Actually this same claim also keeps coming from Linux advocates.
Well, it's not true.
It's interesting to note /. and other Mac biased tech blogs are not talking about this.
[UPDATE: /. is finally mentioning it.]
2 comments:
Steve,
Maybe that’s because few people make the claim that it is invulnerable. After all, even OpenBSD, in which security is their primary concern, has been found to have exploits.
Many claims I see among those in the know are that it is more difficult, which it certainly is. Probably a lot more secure than Windows, a little more secure than your typical Linux installation (by virtue of the typical linux installation including way too many pieces of software and bad firewall defaults and services) and less secure than the default OpenBSD install (various really stupid "user-friendly" brainfarts such as opening "safe" (whatever that means) downloads in Safari, trusting credentials from local DNS, using Safari in Help Viewer, etc.)
Then again, I see, far too often, a number of virus companies saying about how insecure Macs are by this exploit or that, when, after vetting it seems that the exploit is trivial and misleading. One might question their motivations for "reporting" these things.
Also, having owned a Mac since 1985, I can say handedly that anti-virus software on it in the last ten years has been the cause of more crashes and taken more of my time than the viruses they purport to protect against.
I see this claim of invulnerability all the time. It's the number one reason people give for switching to the Mac. Follow any thread on any forum and you will find people claiming you should buy a Mac because they are invulnerable to viruses and other attacks.
For instance, this one where the Apple advocate claims "Would you regret a mac? Probably in the short run yes, but in the long run, i doubt it. you'll enjoy the benefits of no viruses and no crap" (I couldn't find the one someone posted in the Dell forums, so I went looking in the Apple forum, but it's the same mentality)
That's pretty typical of the mindset people encounter, this false belief that because they buy a Mac they are immune to all the problems of the Internet.
From a technical perspective, the Mac probably is somewhat less vulnerable to these issues. Not so much because of design, but because of it's low profile on the net(i.e. the fact that they only have 2-3% of marketshare). So it's effectively what you call Security through Obscurity, which isn't bad per se. It's like not buying a Honda Accord because they are the most stolen cars.
Perhaps people who are in the know wouldn't make the claim that the Mac is invulnerable, but the other 99% of Mac zealots certainly do make that claim.
I've been running Windows NT now since 1996, and in that time I've gotten a grand total of one virus(actually spyware) on my machine, and that came from installing a stupid game from a CD I bought in the store. So this FUD that the Windows experience is filled with virus and other crap is equally as ignorant, IMHO. Although I understand that not everybody is smart enough to not say "Oh, what a lovely wooden horse. Of course you can bring it inside our gates." But I don't go around claiming nobody will ever have problems. I give advice on how one should setup and use the system. (Install virusscan, make sure you have SP2 with automatic updates on, and don't click on things that say "Install this to make your system better")
:-)
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