Jon Udell, the lead analyst of the InfoWorld Test Center no less, writes the following, “With the Sobig.F worm on the wane and its successor presumed to be waiting in the wings, fingers are pointing angrily at Redmond.”
“‘People sometimes ask me why I loathe and detest Microsoft with such a visceral passion,’ wrote packet-radio pioneer and security expert Phil Karn on his Web site. ‘A major reason is the never-ending stream of viruses and worms infesting [Microsoft’s] abysmally insecure software,'” Udell reports.
“For users of Linux and Mac OS X, the recent outbreak was a bittersweet validation. These systems were immune to the worm but — because we are all e-mail users — not to its effects,” writes Udell. “Open source software partisans never seem to follow their argument to its logical conclusion, however. If more people used Linux and/or Mac OS X, more attackers would exploit the vulnerabilities of these systems… The mess we’re in is largely Microsoft’s fault, to be sure, but any dominant software player would have created a similar mess. Ideology, of any flavor, won’t help. We need rational ways to quantify risk and to value its mitigation.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re getting tired of this yellow journalism trying to cover for Microsoft. But, we’ll never stop pointing this stuff out on these pages. Mac OS X is not more secure than Windows because less people use OS X, making it less of a target. Mac OS X is more secure than Windows. Period. This writer is the “lead analyst” for InfoWorld? Perhaps we read it wrong; “lead” not “lead” as in “leader.” He must be charged with studying Pb, Atomic Number 82, and is just filling in for the Tech writer this week. Still, he should be capable of reading the information contained on this website: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletinsByType/bul_vendor_list.html
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Shattering the Mac OS X ‘security through obscurity’ myth – August 28, 2003
CCIA wants U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to reconsider buying ‘insecure Microsoft software’ – August 29, 2003