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Mac OSX Virus Contest Halted, is OSX really secure?
- Thread starter Deku Tree
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Drinky Crow
Banned
kitchenmotors
Banned
As someone who has used to be a PC user, I can say that Mac OS X is much more secure when it comes to viruses and spyware, but OS X is not that big of a target as Windows. I could see why pressure might be put onto a company that is looking to infect OS X, that will open a lot of windows that myself and other Mac consumers want to stay away from. Of course, it's bound to happen, but making a contest out of it is rather silly.
The only real reason Mac OS X is more secure is the same reason Unix is more secure - they actually enforce a system administrator / system user paradigm. Windows doesn't - virtually every Windows system in a non-business setting is a system administrator (oftentimes they don't even use a password). This means that any malicious programs the user happens to come across and use have full access to the system, whereas in Mac OS X and Unix / Linux systems they don't. It's easy to see why that makes Windows much less secure in use. If Microsoft made users create a seperate administrator account and people started using practical security measures there would be far less risk.
Drinky Crow said:
EDIT: I am not sure of Drinky's intentions with that link, but my thoughts stand.
Not only is that nearly a year old, Secunia's predictions have yet to come true. Every 6-8 months one of the big antivirus software companies produces a report which states "the Mac OS is soon going to be hit by viruses, etc." The fact is, in the years since OS X has been released, not a SINGLE virus has shown up. There have been holes that have been patched, but no exploits of these holes.
I'm not naive enough to think it will never happen, but the track record is there.
Try these one on for size for rebuttals at the time that report came out:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/05/security_cannot_be_spun
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows
Gattsu25 said:
ok, not the only reason, but it is the main reason. Any time system security is compromised it is limited to the domain that the current user has access to. In windows this is almost always invariably a system administrator, in a Unix-based system (Mac OS X, Linux, etc) it is oftentimes simply the user itself.
And yes, I knew Mac OSX was based on BSD UNIX (not the same, then they might have to answer to SCO!). Hence why I brought it up.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
Drinky Crow said:
"It is great to know that Microsoft isnt that bad of an operating system "
its great to know that Microsoft isnt even an operating system... technically speaking of course.
An old article: http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20031023.html
OS X is more secure since this article was posted as many holes where closed since then and I still have'nt heard of one single virus that was in circulation only some concepts that realised parts of a virus.
No don't understand me wrong, a good hacker can get access to a stupid users machine, but there's no easy way for script kiddies.
Fredi
OS X is more secure since this article was posted as many holes where closed since then and I still have'nt heard of one single virus that was in circulation only some concepts that realised parts of a virus.
No don't understand me wrong, a good hacker can get access to a stupid users machine, but there's no easy way for script kiddies.
Fredi
wobedraggled
Banned
Speaking of Mac's I have two imac's I wanna sell anyone interested 
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