John Markoff reports for The New York Times, “Internet security is broken, and nobody seems to know quite how to fix it.”
MacDailyNews Take: We do.
Markoff continues, “Despite the efforts of the computer security industry and a half-decade struggle by Microsoft to protect its Windows operating system, malicious software is spreading faster than ever. The so-called malware surreptitiously takes over a PC and then uses that computer to spread more malware to other machines exponentially. Computer scientists and security researchers acknowledge they cannot get ahead of the onslaught.”
“As more business and social life has moved onto the Web, criminals thriving on an underground economy of credit card thefts, bank fraud and other scams rob computer users of an estimated $100 billion a year, according to a conservative estimate by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,” Markoff reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Geez, with that kind of money, we could bail out the U.S. automakers quarterly.
Markoff continues, “For now, Apple’s Macintosh computers are more or less exempt from the attacks, but researchers expect Apple machines to become a larger target as their market share grows.”
Full article here.
Ah, yes, the typical Stockholm Syndrome/Cognitive Dissonance-afflicted myth recitation from the Windows sufferers. Larger target does not necessarily equal more hits.
Once again, it is utterly illogical to imply that the Mac platform is secure via obscurity. Why, if obscurity means security, in April 2007 was there a virus for iPods running Linux (a few thousand devices total, to wildly overestimate, in all the world), but there are no viruses in 7+ years for the over 30 million Mac OS X computers that are currently online? And, why would criminals not target the most affluent personal computer users, the tens of millions of Mac users around the world?
We’ve asked those and similar questions for years, yet the silence remains deafening and telling.
Simple logic is certainly not what AV software peddlers, Windows PC box assemblers, and the rest of the leeches affixed to the Windows ecosystem want people to hear. Fear is what they’re after. The sheep must be kept in the Windows pen, no matter the cost to reputations, reality, productivity, sanity, etc. Far too many have far too much invested in Microsoft Windows for them to stand idly by and let it all slip away due to a vastly superior, vastly more secure solution from Apple. But slip away it does nonetheless.
The idea that Windows’ morass of security woes exists because more people use Windows and that Macs have no security problems because fewer people use Macs, is simply not true. By design, Mac OS X is simply more secure than Windows. Period. For reference and reasons why Mac OS X is more secure than Windows, Markoff’s colleague, The New York Times’ David Pogue, provides a concise mea culpa on the subject of the “Mac Security Via Obscurity” myth here.
“Security via Obscurity” is a defense mechanism for the delusional and also tool for Microsoft apologists and/or those who profit from Windows; to be used when attempting keep the sheep in the pen. 30 million Mac OS X installs is not “obscure” at all, but over seven (7+) years of Mac users surfing the Net unimpeded certainly is “secure.” Besides social engineering scams (phishing, trojans; no OS can instill common sense) the only thing by which Mac users are really affected are large swaths of compromised Windows machines slowing down the ‘Net with spam and nefarious botnet traffic targeted at exploiting even more insecure Windows boxes.
The. Problem. Is. Windows. Get a Mac.
Actually
Windows XP is the insecure OS, if you don’t take certain stringent options, don’t know what your doing, haven’t wiped, reinstalled and updated.
Windows Vista is much better for security.
OS X is the best for security, BUT Apple is VERY NOSEY, EFI for instance, which is a operating system type firmware.
Give a new app your admin password and god knows what gets installed in EFI. Having internet access and reading your hard drive before OSX has even loaded! All part of the new DRM standard.
Wonder why it’s been taking longer and longer to boot OS X after Leopard upgrade?
Well my sniffer has been getting hits from my Mac’s as the OS is being loaded after Leopard.
It is true that we could be more efficient in a world without Windows. It is also true that banks could be more efficient by conducting all their business electronically. What about car dealers? We could buy our cars on the web. Shopping should also be done electronically. This would certainly be better since we could adjust production to demand exactly. We could even improve the system by reducing the number of clothes available. That would allow for even greater economies of scale!
I imagine you get the point. Yes, our economy is inefficient. But it gives us choice and it produces jobs. Make it too efficient and we lose both. Not a good path to follow if you ask me.
Pete,
an expert with a sniffer. And a list of announcements.
Vista is better – better than what, Pete? My dog is smarter than my cat, but they still cant read or speak.
It takes longer for Leopard to boot because Apple is stealing all the cash from your bank account, Pete.
Pete – can you hear me Pete? Pete? Pete?
“I’m sorry, Pete wont get another day-pass until Thursday.”
Banks would be more efficient if they didn’t blow our cash on bad investments. Wow.
Auto makers would be better if the made simple cheap cars that weren’t ugly and heavy on gas.
Dare to imagine.
Life could be better, simply by doing MORE THINGS RIGHT – fuck the argument that life must be inefficient so that we have choice. Thats arrant nonsense.
Reductionist crap – we must use Windows, after all everything is bad anyway, so thats good, right?
Wrong, Dutch. Very wrong. Horribly wrong. Dangerously wrong.
Hey Dutch – do you, know Pete by any chance?
Writing the first real virus for OS X is the Hacker Holy Grail, and it hasn’t been done yet.
Telling.
If citizens of a country did that much damage to the US, the govt would be carpet-bombing them by now.
If security by obscurity works, then the haters are our first line of defence.
Cubert,
Those capable of writing a virus for a Mac are too busy writing software for Apple products.
Those who make a living off botnets are too lazy to learn to code for a Mac and too busy spending their money on the finer things in life. (Whiskey and Whores).
Besides, Macs spend most of their day in sleep mode. No profit there. Too bad XP & Vista are virtually incapable of going into sleep mode.
Exactly. Corporate IT guys NEED computers that constantly break for job security. Corporate IT guys NEED to show their “superiority” by fixing things for people. Corporate IT guys LOVE to show their MS certifications and think that makes them better, and more important, than everyone else.
It’ll be interesting when Corporate IT gets to smell the stench of our worsening economy, when certain IT clowns get “taken behind the barn” by their boards, and get orders.
Something nice, like to immediately cut head count by half, and reduce their operating costs by double-digit percentages within months. Oh, and to improve uptime and IT effectiveness in the process.
At what point do they choose results over make-work?
It’s coming to the Mac, just not to the same degree. Give it 3 more years and 40% of you smarter one will be running Anti-V/Malware programs.
The Windows guys have been saying “OS X is going to be overrun by malware, just like we have been, any day now!” for the last eight years. It just doesn’t seem to happen.
“Security via Obscurity” seems viable to IT people and those of mental similarity because it rhymes. For people of that mentality – if it rhymes it must be true.
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