Geez, Windows users just can’t wait to bounce on a…
December 15th, 2003 | by Jeremy |Geez, Windows users just can’t wait to bounce on a Mac “vunerability”, can they?
A recent article by PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff called “Macs Are Not Invulnerable” spoke of the author being “happy” to hear about a recent security hole in Mac OS X.
Yes, there was a security problem that would have allowed people ON YOUR OWN NETWORK to access your Mac, meaning they had to be on another computer in your business or in your home, not over the Internet. It was quickly addressed by Apple.
But the part of the article that annoyed me was this section:
I was tired of the “We use Macs because they don’t get attacked by viruses and hackers” refrain from Mac nuts.
I generally counter with what is apparently a secret carefully hidden from Mac zealots: “That’s because only a fraction of the world uses Macs. What’s the point of attacking a niche market? No one will notice!”
And that’s where Lance really showed his ignorance. First of all, we’re not talking about a fringe OS like BeOS. We’re talking about millions and millions of computers running Mac OS X. OS X has been out for three years and THERE’S NOT A SINGLE VIRUS FOR IT! Yes, zero. Don’t you think a virus writer would just be itching to shut up all us “Mac zealots” if he could?
Also, OS X has ports which hackers can use to access the computer off by default whereas Windows has those same ports on. There’s a lot of other reasons why Mac OS X is more secure in an article by Richard Forno that he wrote in response to Lance’s article. Just compare the two and see which author is more informed.