On 16/03/2011 4:35 AM, Fabrizio Giudici wrote:
You know that I'm not exactly a Mac fun, but they have a point. The point is that there are by far less Mac OS X viruses than on PC, so that many Mac users can live without an antivirus (of course, with a non-zero risk), while the same isn't true for Windows.
I listen to a few security podcasts as well. On a few there are often little jokes about Mac OS X and viruses. Like "Mac's don't get viruses" and "the latest OS X patch included over 50 security fixes". Then repeated the next patch release. (I have not verified the claims of number of security fixes per patch - no idea how they measured it.) The view always put forward is Mac OS X is not necessarily more secure - its just less popular. So if you are going to write a virus, do you go for the 90% market share or the 10% share? (I don't know what the percentages really are.) My prediction is the number of viruses will be proportional to market share.
Another perspective however is that smart dedicated devices may help. They are more constrained, less general purpose, so less susceptable to viruses taking advantage of designed-in rich functionality. E.g. PDF can contain JavaScript, invoke executables, etc. Its a virus magnet due to its rich functionality - and somewhat cross platform (bonus!). Smart phones, tablets etc are more constrained, so have a smaller attack surface.
Yes, Macs don't get Windows viruses - but cross site scripting attacks, PDF attacks, ... well they are not "Windows" viruses are they? ;-)
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