I just got done reading a pretty interesting article that aims to bust the myth of Macs only being secure because of their lower market share. The article focuses on Mac OS X being built off of BSD Unix, which inherently makes the OS more secure. Here is a quote from the article:
The key is the foundation of the OS. If the OS is designed on a shaky foundation, everything on top will suffer. When Apple moved its customer based from Classic Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, they did so consciously with the idea that they needed a firm foundation for the future. But that meant leaving every Classic app behind in the long term.
Microsoft has never been able to make that commitment and retained the backwards compatibility with Win32 apps. That has put a strain on their whole Windows OS.
I do think that Microsoft really needs to revolutionize the way Windows is built, and as the author mentioned, this will probably require that they scrap what they currently have and start from scratch. I realize that Microsoft wants to keep applications and hardware backwards compatible, but they will probably need to break something in order to make bigger advancements.
I originally saw this article on Digg and I began reading through the comments posted there. Here are a few of the comments that really stood out to me:
miles01110:
The unsinkable Titanic sank overnight. The thousand year Reich lasted a dozen.
tizz66:
OSX isn’t, however, immune to user stupidity. If you write a program that deletes important files and ask a stupid user to run it, it’ll do the same damage on OSX as it would on Windows. It’s the stuff that bypasses users completely that OSX is better protected against, compared to Windows.
…
I couldn’t give two hoots why there’s fewer virii for Mac. Tiny market share? More secure? Steve Jobs is a god? Doesn’t matter to me. All I care is that there ARE fewer. The reasons for it being so mean nothing. If my Mac is attacked less because it’s part of a small market, that’s great.
The first thing that popped into my mind was whether market share really does play a role in this. I still believe it does because if I was a hacker looking to get some user’s personal information, I would design my attack to work on Windows. After all, I would be more confident that my attack would work on someone if I knew I was hitting 90% of the market that Windows holds, as opposed to the 5% that Mac has (those are the latest market share numbers that I remember hearing).
I’ll admit that I haven’t done much with Macs before so maybe my theory is a little bit off, but I just thought that Mac security may have at least a tiny bit to do with their smaller market share. What does everyone else think…if the market shares were reversed and Mac had 90% would Apple be dealing more security woes?
It’s not market share, it’s market type. Generally speaking, geeks and advanced computer users use Mac. The same kind of people that know how to install anti-virus and know not to visit dodgy links. Writing a virus for a Mac would be like trying to sell an iPod to a bat… useless. Most viruses have more point than to be annoying.
Anyway, I don’t care if Mac has less viruses. I have not had 1 single virus or spyware on my XP and I’ve been running it off the same install for years. I’m clever enough to download off trusted sources and keep a copy of AVG running.
Microsoft needs to get some balls and rewrite their OS. Drastic changes need to happen in category of OS 9 to OS X. Is such a nice experience not having a antivirus or spy/adaware prog running 24/7 or even better never having either installed….. and why cant shouldn’t the uninstall process just involve dragging to trash
Those are some great points Lewis! I forgot that all of the people who I know that use a Mac are all pretty geeky, and they know how to recognize an untrustworthy site/file. I can’t remember the last time that I had a virus on my Windows machine either…but I sure do clean up enough virii on other people’s computers.
I think that a rewrite could definitely solve a lot of issues, but if they do things the right way think about all of the companies that would be out of business who’s goal is to provide security for Windows computers.
Like Microsoft cared about any of those hundreds of companies they murderd in the 90′s…..
Welcome to Business world… it aint for the weak…
Well well isn’t that harsh
But then again, yeah–you do have valid points, but some aren’t weak. They just have jobs– jobs they need, since Microsoft surely isn’t looking for any new recruits– and as for back then, I doubt they were THAT cruel.
I think the market-share theory is bull-sh!t. I think if it were true, Macintosh would have at least 10% marketshare, not 0.01%.
The same thing goes with programs. Why would Adobe write their programs again for Mac users just to have a smaller amount of more users? If your install base if bigger, you can bet you have a bigger chance of success, whether it be profit for your program or infection with a virus. Some programmers/coders/virus writers write ONLY for this platform, so why would they only want that small install base? Beats me. maybe they just have faith in the program.
But really, stop blaming it on market share. Virus share means nothing. Success rate for Windows is 40% while success rate for Macintosh and linux is about 2%. You cannot argue with those numbers. (Hint: success rate has NOTHING to do with market share).