The age old question, which platform is more secure ... Mac or Windows.  We all have some input into this, but The Plain Truth decided to go a bit further and get some professional input on the subject, 32 security professional's opinions.  The hands down answer, the Mac ... for now.  Almost everyone took the lower market share answer, an answer that is legitimate but gets around the real guts of the matter.

The Plain Truth uses Macs, and a few of the respondents claimed they used Macs at home as well.  There were of course the Windows lovers that claimed Macs were horrible at security.  While I'm not trying to say they are lying, I keep on thinking back to the Microsoft Evangelicals (article here) and how they were told to beat the Microsoft war drums, and better yet, let the third parties beat the drums even louder.  The person that gets me the most in the article is Eric Johanson, a security researcher.  His point is this ...

"If you look at the number of published vulnerabilities in software and the number of users and compare Windows versus Mac OS you will discover that Mac OS has far more published vulnerabilities per user than Windows does so I think the data pretty much speaks for itself."

You're right Eric, it does speak for itself.  This is classic re-direct that Microsoft Technical Evangelicals push.  While these magic "numbers" aren't given in the article, I find it highly unlikely that the Mac has 9x the published vulnerabilities that Windows does.  So Eric spins it around and says the high number of vulnerabilities on Windows is okay because it is offset by the high number of users ... huh? That just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyways, there are some good quotes.  The basic answers come down to this ... it's about the user & market share.  The Mac's low market share makes it a less likely attack for cybercrimes.  But no matter what computer or OS you use, if you just click on anything you see in cyberville, you will probably end up someplace you don't want to be.

Read more at The Plain Truth


A slightly off-topic side note.

While researching this article I was looking up Eric Johanson via Google.  Nothing to interesting, doing the usual checks.  Clicked on a link to the MSMVPS.com blog (MicroSoft Most Valued Professionals), as it had a hit on Eric's statement.  But it had already passed by the front page.  However, the new front page did have an interesting post.  I'll post it again here, due to the irony.

Confirmed.  MS10-015 blue screens caused by computers already being compromised or backdoored with rootkit.
If MS10-015 causes you a bluescreen - its time to check to see if data about your or your organization has been stolen.  Best to rebuild teh machine from scratch instead of try to repair it.
Published Fri, Feb 12, 2010 5:39 PM by Rod Trent at myITforum.com
Filed under: Security.
(link here)


Now if that doesn't make you laugh, I don't know what will.