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What's really more secure these days - Mac or PC? |
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 20:16 |
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There is no question that Microsoft's Windows XP, and the earlier Windows 2000, are an absolute nightmare from a security perspective. Vista is another story entirely. The debate rages on, but the public perception that Apple's latest operating system is more secure than Microsoft's Vista is just not true. The amount of exploits for each operating system is now about the same. The ability for hackers to penetrate either operating system through the usual attack vectors is about equal. Those vectors, by the way, have more to do with applications than the operating systems themselves. To their credit, Microsoft code quality has improved immensely on the security side, and they are currently the fastest out of the gate for security fixes. The single biggest issue for Apple is their user base, a large chunk of whom are running their computers without any kind of additional security tools - and who have this unfortunate perception they don't need any. Organized crime, the source of most malware these days, knows this full well and has cranked up some interesting exploits - notably malware disguised as video codecs that redirects users to malicious websites used for identity theft purposes. There is no question that the Macs now require the same firewalls and security systems as their Windows counterparts.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 20:20 |
