Virus

Even though Mac OS/X has been demonstrating more problems of late (40 Mac OS X security patches this month, preceded by 90 security patches last month according to Mitchell Ashley), there have still been no significant breaches of OS/X security. Mitchell’s point is that Apple has remained too obscure a target to garner much attention from the hacker world, but I don’t agree. OS/X is a BSD derivative, just like Linux. In fact, most security vulnerabilities that would worry a Linux administrator also worry an OS/X administrator. While OS/X is a less prominent target, it’s also a less vulnerable one.

Linux (and OS/X) was developed based on the more robust security model of UNIX. Both have been hosting some juicy targets for decades. Just imagine the glee of the first hacker to successfully break into Google.

Mitchell is at least partially correct, though. Obviously, with a market share in the 6% range, Apple is a much smaller target. I’m sure if the tables where reversed, OS/X would have been the target of much more aggressive attention. Even so, I’m confident that OS/X is inherently more secure. As Mac’s start to garner more and more attention, I think we’ll see they’re tougher to crack — but not impossible. At least not as long as human error is involved.