Monday, May 08, 2006

Mac OS X not safe? NO! Get rid of all Macs


"Many believe that using an Apple operating system is a form of security in itself," said Stuart McClure, senior vice president in the Global Threats division at McAfee. But, he said, "Apple's Mac OS platform is just as vulnerable to targeted malware attacks as other operating systems."

According to McAfee, Mac OS X is not a secure OS and has many security flaws as do all other Operating Systems. McAfee is a company that produces security software and will likely capitalize to some degree with this report on Mac users and sell some of their security software. Not to say this influenced the finding but definitely it must have motivated them to conduct the study in the first place and possibly (as later mentioned) miskewed the statistics.

Andrew Jaquith, an analyst of the Yankee Group, has stated that the report was "sloppily written and sloppy in its use of statistics," and is "a speculative house of cards resting on a foundation of shaky statistics and questionable assumptions."

Every Operating System has its list of imperfections and Apple is not one to say that their platform doesn't. However, the facts must be looked and possibilities. The fact is, Apple's Mac OS X does have vulnerabilities but they are least likely to be attacked.

Furthermore, the fact is that although McAfee points out that Mac OS X's vulnerabilities have risen 228% (28 to 143 flaws) and Windows only by 73% they do not state the number of vulnerabilities that Windows has. I'm willing to go all-in and state that Windows has a great deal more flaws than Mac OS X.

Furthermore, it is a proven fact that Macs do not get attacked by viruses and malware as much as Windows. Microsoft has a big target on their back and because of this and so their OS has more viruses and malware. Not to mention that many security experts do agree that Windows XP is not a safe OS and is detrimental to the way many users function.

Many security experts have jumped on the bandwagon and have begun to state that Mac OS X isn't as safe as previously expected. Before you begin to believe these people I hope that you take a good hard look at the facts before deciding between a Mac and a PC. And please don't tell me that the reason you are buying a PC is because they are just so much more secure than Macs. I don't think anyone in their right mind believes that besides people that live in Redmond. Look at the facts first and not reports that have not-so-innocent motivations and spin the statistics in their favor.

2 comments:

kurt wismer said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
kurt wismer said...

Many security experts have jumped on the bandwagon and have begun to state that Mac OS X isn't as safe as previously expected.

since it was previously expected that mac osx was immune to viruses and other malware, it is therefore true that it is not as safe as was once believed...