Is Windows inherently more vulnerable to malware attacks than OS X?

Infoworld ^ | August 22, 2006 | Tom Yager

[Echo Talon]

odds would say that one had to, somewhere at some time. :)

[rlmorel]

Regardless of whether the author is biased or not, I base my estimation of whether Windows is inherently more or less secure than a UNIX box on empirical observations:

1.) Proportionally, how many spyware/malware/antivirus packages exist and are used for UNIX boxes vs. Windows boxes?

2.) In my institution, I am allowed to place a UNIX box on the network with no virus protection. I am not allowed, under any circumstances to do so with a Windows box.

While a UNIX box's security seems nearly completely dependent on how it it configured, the same is not true for Windows. A UNIX box can be configured out of the box to be tighter than a gnat's ass, but a Windows box, even perfectlly configured, is vulnerable without various 3rd Party programs, and even then, only up the latest deviant creation by some malicious person out there gets around it. Then the 3rd party protective program must be fixed.

OSX and other UNIX variants seem to be vulnerable to human engineering exploits, that is something that tricks you into entering your password thinking it is an appropriate thing to do.

[rlmorel]

I will accept those odds as well!

[rlmorel]

Heh, I just noticed your tagline...

My brother, who runs his own company doing PC support, calls Internet Explorer "Internet Exploder"...:)

[ShadowAce]

[TechJunkYard]

.. Microsoft's untenable policy of maintaining gaps in Windows security to avoid competing with 3rd party vendors and certified partners..

I had always wondered about that.

So Microsoft intentionally maintains poor security for economic reasons, or just doesn't know any better?

I think it's a bit of both.

[Uri’el-2012]

ET>oh boy an anal English teacher......

Sm>The Hills don't know if you exist, either...

ET>but the Lord does. :D

19 posted on 08/24/2006 3:11:13 AM MDT by Echo Talon

You don't demonstrate that you know the L-rd.

b'shem Yahu'shua

[Uri’el-2012]

Is Windows inherently more vulnerable to malware attacks than OS X?

Microsoft Windows(dos) was designed for one person.
Hence there was never any understanding of a hostile intent to crack the system.

BSD Unix on the other hand was written under contract
from DoD with a mission to defend against hostile attacks in a multi-user environment

Mac OSX was built on a variant of BSD with an additional twenty plus years of understanding of hostile intent.

When I worked at Bell Labs twenty plus years ago there were posters on the walls of cubicles stating :

4.3 > V

Among the world's best Unix programmers, BSD was always considered better than Unix

[Echo Talon]

because i used the word anal?

[Echo Talon]

Berkeley Software Distribution wow man hippies and stuff...

[Uri’el-2012]

No.

But because of your negative, condescending
supercilious attitude towards everyone
who thinks differently than you do.

You do not show the chesed of Y'shua.

b'shem Yahu'shua

[Echo Talon]

maybe if you would quit speaking in tongues i could understand you... :]

[Senator Bedfellow]

Most of these bullet points are simply wrong. Oh, well.

[Question_Assumptions]

Windows was written before computers were commonly networked to the Internet. And contrary to popular mythology that Microsoft helped the Internet explosion, let's not forget that Microsoft launched MSN as a proprietary network and one needed 3rd party Windows TCP/IP socket software (like Trumpet WinSock) to even connect to TCP/IP networks until Microsoft was dragged kicking and screaming to the conclusion that they couldn't control the Internet and added their own socket support.

[Swordmaker]

Most of these bullet points are simply wrong. Oh, well.

Please elucidate.

[Senator Bedfellow]

At random:

Apple's daemons have man pages, and third parties are duty-bound to provide the same.

My initial reaction is naturally "HAHAHAHAHAHA", and yours should be too. Find me the man page for the bfobserver daemon that ships with Xcode. Or save yourself some time and take my word for it that there isn't one. So much for "duty-bound". LOL.

[DesScorp]

"...and Swordmaker posting trash about windows and great articles about Apple."

And he would be absolutely right, at least on the subject of security. I'm an IT Manager, and my networks run everything from Solaris to Windows servers to Linux...my client machines are a big mix as well, but mostly Windows. And no other other operating system gives me as many headaches about security as Windows. Always have, and until they quit giving marketing the final say in Redmond, that's the way it'll always be. Microsoft has world class security people, but their job is to fix the problems from feautures that the marketing wing demands...they haven't been as involved in the design of the OS. Contrast that to groups like OpenBSD, which design their operating system from the ground up with security in mind....if they can't keep a feature secure, it simply doesn't ship.

I'm not the Apple fanboy that Sword is, but his points are mostly valid, and Apple's user experience is still superior to that of Microsoft's....windows has improved, for sure, and it's the best choice for certain kinds of usage, but Apple's are still a better OS. They've brought the prices down drastically on the high end...if they ever follow suit on the low-end (a sub $400 decently packed Mac Mini would be a good start), then I firmly believe you'd see a loss of market share from Redmond, with more business going to Cupertino.

How good is the OS X experience? After becoming familiarized with Apple's by having to learn their ins and outs to support users, I've decided to buy a 600 mhz G3 via Ebay to run OS X for my own personal use. With enough Ram it runs nicely.

[rlmorel]

OS X does okay on a G3.

I just retired an iMac that I was using as a Filemaker server, 600mH 192MB RAM, and it did fine. Hey, I wasn't demanding a lot of it except to not have the OS choke and crash while several users access it, and it stayed up for months running Panther.

OS X is a nice OS. I like it.

[Uri’el-2012]

Windows was written before computers were commonly networked to the Internet...........

34 posted on 08/24/2006 9:22:05 AM MDT by Question_Assumptions

Thats not quite true.

Personal computers perhaps,
but computers had been networked to Arpanet for decades prior to Windows

[Question_Assumptions]

Obviously. And Macs also had Appletalk going way back. I was talking about PCs, specifically.