THE BUSINESS TUNER
Yes XP, Vista, Macs have their faults, like all computer software.
MACs, which are less 1% of computer market do not get attacked as much by Organized Crime,
which creates most of their attacks on computers to steal credit card
and other valued information.
Organized Crime does not concentrate their attacks on MACs,
because their are so few MACs.
However, over the last few months of 2007, Organized Crime, is
becoming more interested in MACs as most MAC owner do not run Anti-Virus or
protection software, so are called 'Low Hanging Fruit' by
Organized Crime hackers.
Suggest reading below:
Microsoft may have readily eclipsed Apple in reducing the number of high-risk security vulnerabilities over the course of 2007, according to a list of Secunia notices compiled by ZDNet. While the security firm reported a lower number of security holes for Windows Vista than its XP predecessor, dropping the number of reported flaws from 32 to 20, all versions of Mac OS X produced a total of 243 flaws -- all but two of which are "highly critical" gaps that could significantly compromise a system if successfully exploited, according to Secunia.
The shared tally of
Windows flaws amounts to 44, 27 of which were "highly" or "extremely" critical
for the software. Secunia does not distinguish between Tiger and Leopard in the
update, making it difficult to determine whether Leopard has improved overall
security.
Crucially, Apple has also left a higher percentage of these attack vectors
unpatched. Roughly 23 percent of all known vulnerabilities have not been fixed
and could lead to denial of service 'flood' attacks or similar attacks if the OS
is breached, Secunia says. About 15 percent of Windows
XP exploits have been left open,
while only 5 percent remain for Vista. It is unclear whether these statistics
include flaws patched with the
2007-009 Mac OS X update, though the overall list includes vulnerabilities
updated as recently as today.
The notice contradicts frequent claims of higher security for Mac OS X and
highlights the potential risks associated with using a UNIX-based
operating system as an OS
foundation. Flaws that surface in FreeBSD, Linux, and other connected operating
systems frequently suffer the same flaws, the notes show.
It is unclear at press time how many of the reported Secunia gaps are the result
of common code base issues, though some of the unpatched issues relate to VPN or
to UNIX services, many of which can only be exploited by a user in front of the
physical computer itself. Secunia also does not typically create a detailed list
of active, "in the wild" viruses and other exploits, which are largely believed
to be far smaller in number for Mac OS X than for Windows.