I’m glad that Mac users have weathered the storm so far, but to quote a my favorite book “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”, Proverbs 16:18.
Your turn will come, just a matter of time (I personally hope it never happens as my next ‘puter will be a Mac.).
Oh I am sure some sophisticated phishing attack might get a few Mac users, but all of the normal methods, buffer overflow, root level access, tightly integrated systems exploits, simply aren't there for Mac hackers to exploit.
I am getting back into programming on the Mac and the first thing I do for fun is to try and figure out how to exploit the machine to get the most out of it. So far the best I can come up with is some scripting code in Python because it is interpretive. Or simply code something nasty with a legitimate program that I can back door. But Microsoft already does that don't they?
I was talking to a Microsoft security programmer the other day and his biggest complaint was that the hackers use the security releases to figure out how to hack the system so that people that don't upgrade are then vulnerable. He thinks that the 'fixes' often cause more problems than they solve, a two edged sword.
He also said that for Vista, Microsoft doesn't plan to offer any security patches, they think it will be perfect out the door. Interesting huh.
No, I don’t think so. Some of us Mac users have Virus Barrier anti-virus on our Macs, and one day I’ll get to see it nuke a virus on this Intel Macbook Pro. I look forward to it, but you just can’t get around the stability of a UNIX OS. Sometimes, I have to boot up Parallels with XP just to remember what it feels like to get infected. Then, I just clean it up. Makes me appreciate the OS X Tiger experience even more.