“Academic proofs of concept and theoretical vulnerabilities don’t count. Neither do computer worms, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, spam or any of the other nasty species in the zoology of malware,” Elmer-DeWitt reports.
“The issue comes up anew because Apple’s latest Get a Mac ads are once again hammering PC for those “thousands of viruses” to which Microsoft operating systems and application suites are heir. And that, in turn, has led to a resurgence of comments in this space to the effect that a) Macs are just as vulnerable as PCs and b) the only thing that protects them is their miniscule market share,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “Those ideas, while widely promulgated on the Web, are wrong.”
Elmer-DeWitt reports, “The fact that Mac OS X represents less than 4% of the worldwide installed base of computers might explain why there are fewer Mac viruses. But it wouldn’t explain why there are none.”
MacDailyNews Take: This sounds sooo familiar… 
Elmer-DeWitt continues, “There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of PC viruses (see partial list), a handful of Mac OS 9 viruses, and not one for Mac OS X.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
Related article:
FUD Alert: CNET spews ‘Snow Leopard could level security playing field with Windows’ lunacy – September 01, 2009
Ooh, big scary ‘Mac flaw’ could let hackers get scrambled data – July 30, 2009
FOXNews blows it: Incorrectly reports that Apple encourages multiple antivirus utilities for Mac – April 28, 2009
CNN blows it; gets all worked up about a Mac Trojan that isn’t the first nor is it the last – April 23, 2009
NY Times blows it: repeats ‘Security via Obscurity’ myth – April 08, 2009
Get a Mac: Microsoft’s Windows’ swiss cheese insecurity costs $100 billion annually – December 06, 2008
Yet another Windows worm builds yet another massive criminal botnet, global threat – December 03, 2008
Apple pulls ‘old and inaccurate’ antivirus support article; says ‘Macs are secure right out of box’ – December 03, 2008
Mossberg: Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard faster, better, far less prone to malware than Windows Vista – April 09, 2008
Mac trojan makers churn out slightly modified versions to evade anti-malware detection – November 08, 2007
Lack of Apple Mac malware baffles expert – March 21, 2007
Sophos: Apple Mac OS X’s security record unscathed; Windows Vista malware just a matter of time – July 07, 2006
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003
@ChrisM – that’s a big “if” coming from a company like MSFT. Allow or cancel?
@Dallas
“Someone explain what the difference is between a, Virus, Trojan Horse, and Worm”
Here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware
It’s because there are more PCs than Macs……….. not. That’s what my friends like to say. I wonder what they will say when Apple has 50% market share?
@jjj: I agree wholeheartedly.
Because not enought people use Macs to make it worth their time
@Ernie P
you are a supreme douche
@Ernie P (again)
there are tens of millions of dollar bounties on the black market to create a successful mac virus, windows viruses rarely make individuals money
And so that’s why BMWs never get in auto accidents, because their market share is so low, right?
Even if Windows 7 were perfect at filtering out viruses, there are still the anti-virus application overhead, processing time, and definition updating to contend with. Why bother? I use my Mac for business every day, no anti-virus software at all, even though I also VPN to a corporate network.
My complacency led me to actually catch a virus on OS 9. Luckily it’s OK to be complacent on OS X!
Umm… Here’s a hint Fortune magazine… Mac OS X 10.6 and below is not full of holes like Windows “Swiss Cheese Edition.”
why does it matter “why”?
This building is full of deadly snakes and poison tipped pikes… the other one is not. No one knows *why*, but it is the case.
so you go into the building with the snakes and pikes because there’s no reason that its not happening in the other building?
that’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard.
This debating is meaningless. When (if) that first Mac OS X virus appears out in the real world, that will be proof to me that it is actually possible. Until that day, I’m not going to worry about Mac OS X viruses, and I don’t care anymore about WHY there are no Mac OS X viruses. It may happen at some point, or maybe it will not happen at all. But what’s the point of wasting my brain cycles thinking about it, or wasting my Mac’s CPU cycles protecting against a threat that does not even exist. There is NO point, and THAT is the point.
LOL best user posted quote in the article thread
“If computer viruses were insect pests:
Living with Windows is like living in a house that you have to fumigate every week to keep the cockroaches out of the cupboards.
Living with Mac OS X is like living in a house where you might find one dead gnat on the window sill every five years.
Posted By UniqueVisitor, Bowie, MD: September 2, 2009 2:38 PM”
NICE.
If the reason Windows got viruses was because they are everywhere, then all the unix servers running the internet should get viruses too. A PC with a virus in New Zealand passes through a global network of unix servers and infects a PC in Hawaii, because that’s the nearest vulnerable computer.
Seen 4 machines lately with a DNS changer virus, traffic shunted through some Russian server, not malicious but not changed much from the pc Trojan. Yes Trojans need user permission and trick u into installing it. Mostly from torrents and installing needed codec’s. Apple just patch something in the DNS after 10.5.8. What worries me is Apples recent slow fix for bug in java, more that 6 months. My advise install Virusbarrier 5 and scan you files.
Quesion for bioness: Are you using a Bioness device or working with or for them…or do you just happen to have a name that is similar to the company that makes the Ness L300? Couldn’t help but ask…
ok..here’s the NEW Slogan:
Obscurity thru Security.
Take that all you windows fanboys…
mdn magic word = wrote meaning I wrote that.
Virus? None on OS X. None on Linux. None on FreeBSD. None on OpenBSD. None on NetBSD. None on Solaris. What do all these have in common? They are all Unix or Unix-like OS’s. What OS is not built on a Unix architecture? Windows.