StimpE alerted me to this one. Apparently, OS X has at least one security flaw. "The lesson here is that if we look at Mac OS X and compare it to, say, Windows XP, we find that, in terms of the number of vulnerabilities, they are actually quite comparable," said Vincent Weafer, senior director at Symantec Security Response. Uh, wow...that's not a security comparison you want to have. The full report is over at Yahoo!.
I have been reading a lot regarding OSX's security flaws. Apple are in big trouble at the moment. A few weeks back it became apparent that there were new virus for the Macintosh. Then we learned about various un-published security holes and vunrebilities. And recently there have been several 'competitions' to hack into a Mac Mini running as a web server! I think it's fair to say that Mac OSX is a very insecure operating system. The only reason it hasn't been taken advantage of before is because of it's lack of popularity. At this point in time, I would feel safer running XP with all the security fixes, then run OSX.
Well, it does make note that just because of the OS X being very close to *BSD in design, Apple has obviously f-ed up on the execution somehow. Of course, I tend to believe that there's no flawless OS out there in terms of security, however, those that are designed around that are much less likely to have these flaws, or at least it will be some time before the flaws are discovered.
and just last weak i was in a class argument of how mac osx was the best OS to date... hahaha wow compared to win xp in vulnerabilities isn't great at all!
While Mac OS has its merits, I am definately not a fan. Between the crusty old Mach microkernel and the disregard of many UNIX security concepts, MacOS may be superior in security to the ubiquitous Windows family but not secure enough, it seems. I hate to bang this drum again, but on a system which actually utilizes user privilege seperation virii should never be an issue. That's not to say Linux will be safe forever; Ubuntu has users run in a near root-like state and Linspire gives users the option of running as root full-time. Distros which compromise security for a small modicum of convenience may find themselves in Apple's shoes sooner or later. However, those distros which do stick to the clear break between user and root should have no such problems in the foreseeable future.
Viruses are not the only thing that Mac users have to worry about. Unsuprisingly Spyware and Adware are on the increase. I doubt there are many tools available on the Mac to combat them.
