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From the article:

Still, all operating systems have vulnerabilities, including OS X. Like Microsoft, Apple issues a monthly set of security patches to plug the holes. The big difference is that actual exploits of Mac vulnerabilities have been extremely rare, and that suggests a lack of interest by attackers. A few years ago, OS X probably would have come under attack just for the challenge of it. But all the evidence suggests that these days, the ablest writers of viruses, spyware, and worms, are motivated more by profit than glory, and Windows, with 90%-plus of the market, is where the money is.

Bush2000: That about sums it up.

Hi, again, Bush. I just found this article ... a response to the Business Week (and Windows apologists, such as you) from MacDailyNews:

MacDailyNews Take: According to Apple, there are "close to 16 million Mac OS X users" in the world and there are still zero (0) viruses. Zero. According to CNET, the Windows Vista Beta was released "to about 10,000 testers" at the time the first Windows Vista virus arrived.
Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings. - CNET News.
Using Wildstrom's "logic:" Virus writers are motivated by profit, so they attack those who surf the Web using Windows because they tend to be less educated and make less money than their Mac-using counterparts. If profit is the motivator, wouldn't it make more sense to try to steal from those with the most money? Or perhaps, it's too hard and they can't get into Mac OS X user's machines at all?
Using common sense, there should be a least one virus in the over 5 years since Mac OS X was released, shouldn't there? But, there is not one Mac OS X virus. Where is it? The reason why has so much more to do with inherent security than anything else, that to continue to try to equate "security via obscurity" (for an OS that, by the way, isn't "obscure") with the inherent security built into Mac OS X, is ridiculous. The New York Times' David Pogue once tried the Mac OS X "security via obscurity" myth on for size. It didn't fit. Pogue thought about it and quickly recanted. (Read Pogue's simple explanation why Mac OS X much more secure than Windows XP here.)
People who propagate the "Mac OS X is secure because it's obscure" myth are either not thinking the issue through completely or are Microsoft apologists. Apple Mac OS X is vastly better than Windows at protecting its users from malicious attacks. Mac OS X is so much better, in fact, that it's literally a joke to write lines like, "still, all operating systems have vulnerabilities, including OS X. Like Microsoft, Apple issues a monthly set of security patches to plug the holes." Those words suggest that Wildstrom thinks Mac OS X would be as prone to viruses, spyware, adware, etc. as Windows, if only it had "90%-plus of the market." (Windows doesn't have "90%-plus of the market," by the way.) Mac OS X would not be as vulnerable to viruses, worms, spyware, etc. as Windows if it had Windows' installed base. Not even close.
Windows was not designed for open networks like the Internet. Microsoft could never say no to backwards compatibility and now have an OS in the hands of millions of interconnected people that wasn't designed to be secure when interconnected. Microsoft has been promising better security for years with each successive Windows packaging change. If you think Windows Vista is going to magically fix the problems, we've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn for you on sale at eBay now.
Note to all of you "security via obscruity" types: please stop insulting Apple Mac OS X's (and NeXT's and decades of Unix's) brilliant operating system designers while simultaneously trying to cover for Microsoft's ineptness. The reason that Mac OS X users surf the Web with impunity is because of the secure way Mac OS X is designed, not because it's "obscure." What kind product that 16 million people use daily is "obscure"? Your argument is as flawed as Windows. 16 million people use Mac OS X daily and it's never had one single virus in over 5 years. Let's get serious. Mac OS X not secure because it's obscure, it's just better.

Now that REALLY sums it up.

In fact, it does such a good job that I am going to PING the Mac List to this thread again...

Click here to comment on the PINGed article!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

The pertinent parts of the David Pogue article are excerpted below:

How Susceptible Is Your Operating System to Viruses?
. . . I also wrote that Mac OS X and Linux are virus-free because they offer virus writers a much smaller “audience” than Windows -- a notion that’s been much repeated in the press, most recently last week’s BusinessWeek cover story. That, as it turns out, is a myth, no matter who repeats it. There’s a much bigger reason virus writers don’t like Mac OS X and Linux.
“Unix [which underlies Mac OS X] and Linux ARE more secure,” wrote one reader. “They have been developed, open-source style, by people who know exactly what they are doing. Unix and Linux have had at least 10 years of battling hackers to better themselves. This leads to an extremely secure environment.”
Many of you also pointed out simple design decisions that make Mac OS X and Linux much more secure than Windows XP. For example:
* Windows comes with five of its ports open; Mac OS X comes with all of them shut and locked. (Ports are back-door channels to the Internet: one for instant-messaging, one for Windows XP’s remote-control feature, and so on.) These ports are precisely what permitted viruses like Blaster to infiltrate millions of PC’s. Microsoft says that it won’t have an opportunity to close these ports until the next version of Windows, which is a couple of years away.
* When a program tries to install itself in Mac OS X or Linux, a dialog box interrupts your work and asks you permission for that installation -- in fact, requires your account password. Windows XP goes ahead and installs it, potentially without your awareness.
* Administrator accounts in Windows (and therefore viruses that exploit it) have access to all areas of the operating system. In Mac OS X, even an administrator can’t touch the files that drive the operating system itself. A Mac OS X virus (if there were such a thing) could theoretically wipe out all of your files, but wouldn’t be able to access anyone else’s stuff -- and couldn’t touch the operating system itself.
* No Macintosh e-mail program automatically runs scripts that come attached to incoming messages, as Microsoft Outlook does.
Evidently, I’m not the only columnist to have fallen for this old myth; see www.sunspot.net/technology/custom/pluggedin/bal-mac082803,0,1353478.column for another writer’s more technical apology. But the conclusion is clear: Linux and Mac OS X aren’t just more secure because fewer people use them. They’re also much harder to crack right out of the box.

Please note that the article link in the last paragraph requires a payment for Baltimore Sun archive access. It is, however, available in a Way Back Machine archive:

Readers contend Mac's OS X is much tougher to crack than Windows