Re: help me understand how a Mac is virtually immune to viruses?
- From: Davoud <star@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 12:50:31 -0500
Beryl Gormley:
> After my initial question about a computer switch to Mac, I got to thinking
> about some of my colleagues at work mentioning that a Mac is virtually
> immune to Win viruses. I know this may be elementary (my dear Watson), but
> how is this so? Wouldn't the Mac be using the same programs for Win surfing
> (Firefox, for example) and be receiving the same spyware and other crap
> downloaded in the system as on the Win environment?
To the last part: Yes, the Mac user might download a virus or other
malware, but those are written to run under Windows, and they can't be
installed and run under the Mac OS. As a webmaster who receives lots of
mail from non-geek Windows users, (my web sites aren't computer
related) I receive e-mails with viruses attached every day. I also
receive the occasional virus from Windows experts. No big thing.
Conventional wisdom is that the reason no one has successfully
penetrated Mac OS X is that nobody is trying because nobody (meaning
only about 5% of users) uses Macs. If you consider who the Mac users
are, however <http://www.annapolisappleslice.com/nobody.html>, in order
to believe that you would have to believe that *no one* wants to hack
the movie industry, the television industry, the publishing industry
<http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114464,00.asp>, NASA, the
Space Telescope Science Institute, the Human Genome Project
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/02/28/business/index.php> the FBI,
the U.S. Army <http://tfbbs.com/machackers.html>, certain "other"
government agencies, Microsoft (yes, they have a bunch of Macs), the
iTunes Music Store, or Apple itself.
The real reason the Mac OS hasn't been penetrated is that no one has
yet found a way to do so. There have been and continue to be vast
numbers of attacks against Mac networks -- even my own little six-Mac
network. One problem attackers have is that it requires user
intervention to install software on a Mac.
Having said that, I don't think that Mac users should be too smug; I
expect that someone, some day, will find a way to penetrate the Mac OS.
If it's a virus it could be bad, because practically no one has
anti-virus software on their Macs. Still, if and when that happens
we'll be hundreds of millions of penetrations behind Windows. Just one
more way Windows leads the Mac!
Davoud
--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
.
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