I'm still of the opinion that the reason MS gets most all of the virus attacks is simply because it is what most all use in the world.
Do you go after the 99.2% or the .8% of the systems?
I think they go where they can affect the most people.
Computers are nothing more than a bunch of magnetized 011010010101010's regarding hard drives, so there really is no protection where there is a will to bust it.
in truth, vulnerabilities are more publicized by the Open Source Software Community (hereafter referred to as OSS).. when comparing it to Micro$oft'$ vulnerabilities you are more likely to get a severe downsizing of the actual problem. in otherwords, they only publicize what they want to admit to.
The best way to get the truth is to go someplace that tracks bug reports on multiple fronts, the best place (IMHO) is
Secunia. You'll find that there are multiples of vulnerabilities EVERY DAY reported for OSS, as well as Apple and M$ on occasion. The real key is when you look at the expedience in said vulnerabilities getting fixed, or 'patched'.
here's a scary thought:
Windows XP Professional compare the above to this:
Gentoo Linux Kinda scary if you ask me.
Also, to respond to the comment "
I'm still of the opinion that the reason MS gets most all of the virus attacks is simply because it is what most all use in the world."
Yes, thats true,
BUT even if the world did use OSS as a majority you'd find that many of the bugs that can be exploited are patched within days (if not hours). The reason exploits hit M$'s products so hard is because the bug is found, and M$ does nothing with it for weeks if not months. That is where the strength of OSS comes in.
I'm still of the opinion that the reason MS gets most all of the virus attacks is simply because it is what most all use in the world. That's probably a large part of it. There's also a religious aspect to it, though -- there's lots of folks who hate the infidel Microsoft.
If/as Linux becomes more pervasive, I think there will be many more nasty bugs written for it.