“A softball tech question: Can you name the innovator whose gorgeously distinctive products earn praise from reviewers and almost cultish devotion from customers? The answer: Apple Computer,” Edward C. Baig writes for USA Today in his article, “New iMac even more exquisite than last one.”
“I suspect lots of Windows users are curious about Macs nowadays — and security is a chief cause. The Windows crowd must feel like residents of Florida — one hurricane after another. The machines appear to be under constant attack from virus writers and purveyors of spyware,” Baig writes. “By contrast, Macs have been largely immune. Just as Willie Sutton was famously quoted as wanting to rob banks because that’s where the money is, the imbeciles who hurl viruses at PCs do so because that’s where the most damage can be inflicted.”
“But you need not fret about security to lust after a Mac, especially one as striking as the brand-new iMac G5 I’ve been testing. It lives up to its billing as the whisper-quiet ‘world’s thinnest desktop computer,'” Baig writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Another great review for Apple’s iMac with the exception of Baig’s sideways touching of the long-ago-discounted “security through obscurity” myth. We wish Baig had been more clear about the reasons for Windows’ security woes and Mac’s lack of security problems. As it’s written, Baig’s piece might leave the impression that Windows’ morass of security woes exists because more people use Windows and, conversely, that Macs have no security problems because less people use Macs. That is simply not true. Mac OS X is not more secure than Windows because less people use OS X, making it less of a target. By design, Mac OS X is simply more secure than Windows. Period. Read David Pogue’s mea culpa here for reference. Otherwise the article’s a great read.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Is Mac OS X really inherently more secure than Windows? – August 26, 2003
BusinessWeek’s Haddad gets it wrong; thinks low market share spares Macs from viruses – August 28, 2003
Shattering the Mac OS X ‘security through obscurity’ myth – August 28, 2003
Fortune columnist: ‘get a Mac’ to thwart viruses; right answer for the wrong reasons – September 02, 2003
Wall Street Journal’s Mossberg on making the switch from Windows to Mac – September 18, 2003
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003
Columnist tries the ‘security through obscurity’ myth to defend Windows vs. Macs on virus front – October 1, 2003
Gates: Windows ‘by far the most secure’ system; tries to use ‘Mac OS X secure through obscurity’ myth – January 27, 2004
Mac OS X has no viruses; what’s wrong with Windows? – February 11, 2004
SmartMoney: Long-suffering Windows users can only dare to dream of Mac’s ease-of-use – February 12, 2004
Spyware, adware plague Windows users online; Mac OS X users surf freely – April 19, 2004
Gartner: Worms jack up the total cost of Microsoft Windows – May 07, 2004
Windows ‘Scob’ virus designed to steal financial data, passwords; Macintosh unaffected – June 26, 2004
Tired of patching patches to patch Windows patches? Writer suggests getting a Mac – August 03, 2004
Mossberg: Dump your Windows machine and get an Apple Macintosh to free yourself of spyware – August 25, 2004
Millions of Windows PC’s hijacked by hackers, turned into zombies; Macintosh unaffected – September 08, 2004
Security is top priority in Apple’s Mac OS X – September 12, 2004
Windows XP worm speaks to users as it deletes their files; Macintosh unaffected – September 13, 2004
University of Chicago recommends all students patch Windows at least once a day – September 14, 2004
USA Today columinst angry about Windows viruses, adware, spyware – September 15, 2004
Windows besieged by hackers; number of Windows viruses soars by more than 400% – September 20, 2004
When will they understand?
That was a “first post”…by the way.
they’ll start to understand, as soon as they actually take the plunge…and get a Mac….
I think MDN is reading too much into the quote. In fact the author stated that virus writers go after Window boxes “because that’s where the most damage can be inflicted.” Sounds accurate to me. I didn’t see any mention of security by obscurity.
Almost cultish? Just for the record, I take my Kool-aid with a couple of shots of Grey Goose.
what would you expect from USA Today? USA Today is not know for detailed news, defintely does not have a reputation for performing thorough research. they primary present synopsis news – that’s it.
what would you expect from USA Today? USA Today is not know for detailed news, defintely does not have a reputation for performing thorough research. they primary present synopsis news – that’s it.
how did i hit the submit key twice?
damnit! sorry for the multiple posts.
It was such a good post I enjoyed reading it twice.
I found the article quite well written and with personal touch. And he is right: a virus writer can inflict much more damage when he targets the grey boxes, if he targets a Mac the virus will bounce off with no damage.
Let’s not be too paranoid!
FIRST POST!!!!
EVERYONE, READ THE QUOTE AGAIN. USATODAY DID NOT MENTION THAT MACS ARE “more secure than Windows due to obscurity”. Seesh, do most people not read before they post? Wait, don’t answer that…
hey! i read the damn article before posting. it’s about how gore lost the 2000 election in florida, right?
effwerd: hey! i read the damn article before posting. it’s about how gore lost the 2000 election in florida, right?
Yes … [slowly backs away…]
I sent the following email to him:
article: “By contrast, Macs have been largely immune. Just as Willie Sutton was famously quoted as wanting to rob banks because that’s where the money is, the imbeciles who hurl viruses at PCs do so because that’s where the most damage can be inflicted.”
Your argument may seem to make logical sense, but it fails to recognize the inherent security superiority of the Mac platform (Mac OS X), which is built from the ground up to be more secure than Windows.
1. There is no registry on the Mac. No central way for programs to muck around in your computer. You need administrative access to muck around in the system folder of a Mac and root access to do real damage (root user accounts have to be specially setup to even exist on a Mac).
2. Any program that wants to add anything to or change anything in the System folder requires a username/password authentication.
3. No virus exists in the wild on the Mac OS X platform, 4 years and counting. None.
4. No spyware.
5. No malware of any kind (adware, bloatware, etc.).
Mac users are highly connected to the net, many have broadband, and there are over 15 million active users of OS X. So far not one virus, why not? You claim it’s because of “obscurity” but there’s nothing obscure about Apple, it gets as much press as just about any other tech company out there, with the exception of Microsoft, and far more than it’s numbers would suggest.
If hackers are at it only for exposure, writing the first successful virus for Mac OS X would get a lot of exposure.
It’s also harder to hack into a default setup Mac OS X machine (it’s never impossible to hack a computer on the internet). No ports are left open and vulnerable like is the case in Windows. You have to open ports, so no hacker can assume that there will be any given specific ports that are left open unless the user opens them.
Mac OS X is built upon UNIX and has an open source core, which means that security vulnerabilities that are found in the core operating system have a higher chance of being discovered than closed source systems like WIndows (Keep in mind also that the code base for Windows has been becoming impossibly large and unmanageably bloated, leading to much more likely instances of security vulnerabilities).
(cont)
All things being equal, which do you think would lend itself to more vulnerabilities:
1 open source, smaller newer code base
2 closed source, large bloated old code base
I’m also leaving out one of the greatest vulnerabilities of WIndows: Internet Explorer. This little program that MS welded onto the operating system of Windows is one of it’s greatest security flaws. A program that has access to all your files, and that is your portal to the internet. Even without ActiveX, this sounds like a security nightmare, and it is. US CERT has warned against using Explorer, and recommends using an alternate browser. Explorer is used by 94% of the internet! Yikes!
On the Mac there is no such program that surfs the internet and also manages and controls all your files.
To those that claim that “the imbeciles who hurl viruses at PCs do so because that’s where the most damage can be inflicted.” is not a variation on the “security through obscurity” theme, I disagree. It’s sneaky, true, but it’s just another angle at Macs don’t have viruses because there are fewer of them than PCs. That’s the heart of the security through obscurity theme.
what? can’t *zzzzzt* you, you’re breaking up *SQWAWK* someon blocking my *crumples paper in front of mic* can’t connect…
me:
I agree with you. I saw nothing of “Security through Obscurity” in the article. It is *completely* accurate that malware written for the PC can inflict far more damage to PCs than malware written for the Mac can inflict on Macs. A true virus is very difficult to get to work on the Mac, and requires a great deal of cooperation from the user which is not likely to be provided. On a PC, if you get it, your machine will both infect itself, and pass its infection on to others, all without any intervention from you.
On the other hand, if I were a PC user contemplating adding a Mac to my computing arsenal, and I read about Bank incompatibilities, that would make up my mind right there. No Go.
I am not sure that Baig is as much on our side as he pretends.
Mike
To those that claim that “the imbeciles who hurl viruses at PCs do so because that’s where the most damage can be inflicted.” is not a variation on the “security through obscurity” theme, I disagree. It’s sneaky, true, but it’s just another angle at Macs don’t have viruses because there are fewer of them than PCs. That’s the heart of the security through obscurity theme.
I disagree. “Security through obsurity” is at most only a subset of the author’s statement. Not the other way around. It appears the author does recognize that there are multiple reasons for Mac’s superior security and is thus purposely being ambiguous. In other words he’s stating for whatever the reason attacking Macs is harder than attacking Windows. Why that is is left up to the reader. You’re reading too much into one sentence. In the words of hagar57, “Let’s not be too paranoid!”
“the imbeciles who hurl viruses at PCs do so because that’s where the most damage can be inflicted.”
I would think that the most damage would occur with a rapidly spreading Mac OSX virus that deleted the hard drive X hrs after infecting and self propagating.
It would bring Apple and it’s market niches to their knees.
After all, everyone expects another windows virus. So he is saying security through obscurity.
There are millions of Macs running. If all PCers are right in saying that it is mostly in publishers and media department, well, what most disruptive and chaotic result if ads, magazines, newspapers, TV, etc. could not deliver because their Mac dept are infected.
Think about it for a second. It would be MAJOR DISRUPTION.
It does not happen but for very different reasons than ‘little damage’ if on the Mac. Little damage my a$$. It would be VERY noticeable and affect everyone: “What? no newspaper today?”
While I appreciate MDN’s service in presenting us with good Mac-oriented news, and generally agree with their sentiments about the articles they link to, I feel compelled to call them out on this minor point:
Just because Macs are inherently more secure, that doesn’t mean that “security through obscurity” is a myth.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand that by structure and design it is harder for virus writers et al. to harm Macs running OS X. BUT, that doesn’t put the lie to the (simple, clear) fact that someone who wants to maximize the effect of his malware will see Windows as a better target BECAUSE (in part) there are more Windows users out there. It’s an issue of incentives, and as far as I can tell it’s nearly irrefutable. Which means it’s not a “myth.”
Look: even if (IF) Macs weren’t inherently more secure, and “security through obscurity” was the whole story, it would still be a good reason to switch. Why? Because even if a million people Switched, the Mac would still be obscure, and thus secure. Even if ten million people Switched, ditto. Even if Apple TRIPLED its installed base of Macs overnight (a base that took twenty years to build), it would still be obscure relative to Windows, and thus secure.
So, for all intents and purposes, for the next five or ten years, obscurity does and will equal security. If a peecee user can get this through their skull and it helps move them towards buying a Mac, why complain?
whether or not the mac os a more secure platform doesn’t in itself prove the security through obscurity.
If you’re to use basic logic:
Even though the mac is a more secure platform, it plain and simply has fewer people who are even trying to write a virus for it.
Although that’s not the main reason it’s secure, that’s one “subset” or secondary reasoning and can’t logically be ruled out until larger market share makes it a larger target.
IS UNIX obscure?
No.
Is it more secure than Windows.
YES!
PS. USA Today has always been a joke.. there’ve been a few of their articles up.. it’s like a magazine.. fast food for the mind, you know?