While Snow Leopard includes some improvements in the area of security, noted security researcher Charlie Miller, winner of two consecutive "Pwn2own" hacker contests and co-author of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, concludes that Apple missed the boat on security in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. "Snow Leopard's more secure than Leopard, but it's not as secure as Vista or Windows 7," Miller said.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2009-08-22
What I get fed up with is the sensationalist reporting of every theoretical or minor security flaw in Mac OS X. If you counted the amount of words in articles on this site (and others like it) devoted to reporting arcane discoveries about possible security flaws in macs you would be led to think that out here - in the real world - it was Macs with big the security problems rather than Windows.
As I said in my original post, the fact of the matter is that tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands - certainly a hell of lot) of Windows PCs are infected with all sorts of nasties. Macs are not. This may be because the Window community is still using pre-Vista versions of Windows (and whose fault is that) it doesn't effect my argument. The current balance of reporting of this matter is skewed - it gives a false sense of what the shape of the issue of security breeches is in the real world.
Finally the argument that somehow the smaller market share of macs means fewer people write nasties for macs just doesn't hold water. Most exploits seem to be written for fun and for shock. The bigger the story that a successful virus generates the bigger the attraction for lots of virus writers. If anyone could actually write something that spread around the mac community causing even minor problem it would generate huge publicity. The virus writers thrive on that sort of publicity. If they could do it they would - the fact of the matter is that - so far - they haven't been able to.
Member since:2005-12-02
There are still holes, granted. Can you list some of the malware/spyware by any chance? Are you referring to things like Weather Bug that people install and OEM's like to install, or is there some in the wild spyware/malware that people do not install on their own? No, this is not a troll, but a serious question.
Member since:
2005-04-01
Your definition of "massive infection" is wonky, Thom. There is malware and spyware ALL OVER Vista machines. That's just as bad, if not worse, than the "massive infections" you're talking about (virus/worm) because they are usually not as easily spotted and they persist and reduce system resources/speed/responsiveness.
Holes in Java and Flash still give people a successful doorway to Windows, and we simply don't see that on the Mac. So I think the article is fair: OS X security is not up to par, but it really doesn't matter on the grand scale, you're still more vulnerable on Windows.