Thanks to rarestia for the ping!
Posted on 07/28/2015 9:22:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Wouldn’t the fact that there are just so many more Windows machines running (than any other platform) account for Windows being targeted more than any other (OS)?
My question exactly. But is it due to market share or an iOS advantage? If WIN has 7X marketshare are there 7X the attacks?
make it 12-13X
Of course that’s not the singular reason, and that’s a pretty simplistic view if you feel that way.
I never said it was the singular reason, nor IMPLIED it was. You, if you’re going to attack software, you go where the people are.
Thanks to rarestia for the ping!
I used Apple for 20 years, and mostly PC's the past 15. I haven't had one virus problem on any of my 6 PC's in the past 7 years.
That security by obscurity canard has been shot down multiple times in the past. It is ridiculous to keep bringing it up. There have been Windows Viruses, true viruses, written targeting Windows machines in which the vulnerable number of machines were fewer than 18,000. The Witty Worm when it was released targeted Windows Machines that had not been updated for a vulnerability in the Black Ice router. . . all 18,000 of them. Yet within 45 minutes of it being released onto the Internet all 18,000 were infected. Other viruses were written for even SMALLER populations.
There are almost 100 MILLION OS X Macs in the wild, most of the running completely bare naked, without any anti-virus protection at all except that which is built into OS X. It is known that Apple users are more affluent that Windows users. Those 100 million OS X Mac users are, to put it mildly, sitting ducks. Yet there has never been a successful true computer virus in over 17 years of trying. There simply is no viable vector in OS X to get the viruses to spread. NONE.
There are 57 known Trojan horse programs in eight distinct families for Apple OS X. . . but Apple's OS X will identify each and every one of them and the families to when they belong and WARN the user if they try to download, install, or run any of them. It takes an industrial strength STUPID user to get infected with any of these Trojans because they have to bypass the warning THREE TIMES, once at download, once at install, and once on first run, to get infected.
Apple's security has absolutely NOTHING to do with obscurity. IF someone could come up with a viable virus and found a vector that worked, every single Mac could be infected in a matter of minutes. It is just that difficult if not impossible to do it that in seventeen years no one has succeeded.
The Hacker Team just announced they are selling off their portfolio of hacking tools they sell to government police agencies. . . Android, Windows Phone, RIM, Symbian, jailbroken iPhones, everything except unjailbroken iPhones. They have not been successful in cracking into an unjailbroken iPhone. The data on unjailbroken iOS devices is encrypted to 256 bit AES standards using the passcode and/or the user's fingerprint entangled with the device's UUID stored in the device's Secure Enclave which is part of the processor of the device and inaccessible from outside the device. So iOS devices are secure.
Just stating the obvious. You don’t agree, fine.
I realize that yes, Windows has traditionally been less secure than any Unix operating system. Part of that is because the general user doesn’t understand the OS, where it puts files, there wasn’t a GUI for many years, etc.
A device is only as secure as the person operating it.
Common sense isn’t common, apparently.
Never intended to attack MS software. Just trying to understand why Apple OS' seem to be less susecptable to external attacks,
History and the facts don't agree. . . I can reel of numerous viruses and other attacks on Windows computers targeted on FAR smaller populations than the available target of the Mac OS X population of unprotected computers, computers without any anti-virus ware at all. There were viruses written targeting fewer than 100 vulnerable machines in the past. Sorry, it is NOT "security by obscurity." Nothing on the Internet is obscure. . . everything on the net can be reached in seconds.
The Witty Worm I cited above infected every single one of over 18,000 vulnerable Windows computers on the other side of a Black Ice firewall no matter where they were in the world, and they were spread all over the world, in under 45 minutes. . . and this was after Black Ice had patched the vulnerability in all of the rest of their firewalls six months before but these were merely the ones that were not updated by their owners. The Witty Worm found them.
At the time this happened, those vulnerable computers were CERTAINLY an extremely obscure portion of the Windows machines in the wild, yet 100% of them were attacked and infected. Yet not a SINGLE Mac OS X has ever been compromised by such a worm. How do you explain that discrepancy, ro_dreaming?
Yes, you can get a user to do stupid things. However, as I told you, it takes industrial strength stupidity to do it on a Mac. The user first of all has to know an Administrator NAME and that Administrator's PASSWORD to even continue downloading a known Trojan. Then, once he's been warned he's doing that, and he's been told it will damage his computer and goes ahead and does it. Then, when he INSTALLS the downloaded Trojan, the system warns him AGAIN, and again requires the Administrator's name and password to continue installing it. . . and will warn the user again and require the Administrator name and password once MORE when the Trojan is run for the first time. You see? Truly industrial strength stupid!
If a Mac user gets infected from a known Trojan, he has had to work hard to get infected.
Can a Mac be hacked? Most certainly. . . but it generally requires physical possession of the computer. You give me physical possession of any computer and I will be able to get into it.
They don't appear to have lost any appreciable amount of market share. If that was the only difference between Apple and Microsoft, Microsoft would have been out of business a long time ago.
Of course when you stop supporting XP.
Don’t get me wrong, I never inferred that MS would be put out of business, But on the other hand, fractions of percentages of market share losses can translate to a lot of money. MS is bleeding slowly, but you are right, they won’t bleed to death.
They'd have kept bleeding if they'd kept Ballmer. They didn't.
How long do you figure dire warnings about viruses written for XP will be able the maintain traction?
I have 7 Windows PC’s, a wife and two kids. I do not restrict what they can do on the web, but monitor what they access via router logs. I am diligent about keeping everything up to date Windows and 3rd party software. I also do not install any toolbars and uninstall any software I don’t recognize. All of my PC’s (5 windows 7 and 2 Windows 8.1) have been virus free, rootkit free for many years. I have had to remove a couple of pieces of malware from my younger kids PC, but no major issues.
Maybe it helps that I work in the software business, but I think most people cause their own problems through freeware or carelessness. JMHO
OS X Snake Oil—Stuff you don't need and don't want. Don't buy back what you already own.
They are experts on this and will tell you why you don't need a lot of what is being pushed to the ex-Windows users who have switched to the Macs. They play on the fears of the Windows users who are used to needing all kinds of protections and utilities to just to keep their Windows installs working. It's just not necessary on a Mac.
I’ve used a computer in some capacity since 1981 and never had a virus. Ever.
To each their owm.
It’s based on NextOS which is based on Unix.
No, re_dreaming, Apple's OS X one of the five fully compliant certified, licensed, and trademarked UNIX™ Operating Systems sold today. . . in fact, it is, by far, the best selling UNIX™ in the world today. OS X is fully UNIX™ under the hood. It is not based on UNIX™, ro_dreaming, it is UNIX™.
I’ll leave this here.
Throughout the early 1990s, Apple had tried to create a “next-generation” OS through the Taligent, Copland and Gershwin projects, although these were eventually abandoned.[19] This led Apple to purchase NeXT in 1996, allowing NeXTSTEP, then called OPENSTEP, to serve as the basis for Apple’s next generation OS.[20] This purchase also led to Steve Jobs returning to Apple as interim CEO, and later CEO, shepherding the transformation of the programmer-friendly OPENSTEP into a system that would be adopted by Apple’s primary market of home users and creative professionals. The project was first code named “Rhapsody” and then officially named “Mac OS X”.[21]
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