Comparing Unix to Mac OS is like comparing a swiss army knife to a butter knife.
Security is a function of your desirability as a target.
Mac's aren't a big target because there aren't many (relatively speaking) and very few, are doing anything worth attacking.
Where are hackers going to spend their time? On Unix and Win based machines which run virtually every where and everything or Macs which are mostly in homes and schools? It's the same reason so few hardware or software companies bother making products for the platform - in many cases, it's just no worth the cost.
^^^^^^^^^Security is a function of your desirability as a target.
Mac's aren't a big target because there aren't many^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That has nothing to do with it. That's a purely evasive argument to make. Anyone who makes the marketshare argument in context of security deserves to be laughed at.
Windows is insecure because it's inherently insecure, not because it's a bigger target. Likewise, Macs are inherently secure because they're secure, not because they're a lesser target. Same with linux.
That's why even though Apache has had a larger user base for a long time, for many moons you'd have been crazy for using IIS. IIS was the lesser target, but it was the *EASIER* target.
The writer of this article makes an excellent point about super user, root, administrator, user and etc priviledges. This is partially why winXP has become the laughing stock that it is. Who's brainchild was it to have standard users browsing the internet as an administrator??!?!?!?!
Likewise, if I constantly ran my linux computer, or same for a mac user.... as superuser/root you put yourself in the exact same position.
^^^^^^Where are hackers going to spend their time?^^^^^^^
I understand the argument.
But it has nothing to do with the platform's inherent insecurity, which is what the article is about.
OpenBSD prides itself on being one of the most secure OS's around. Their inherent security has nothing to do with how little marketshare they have. They're secure because they're secure.
Let's put it to you like this. A rich man's house and a poor man's house.
The rich man doesn't even have doors or windows on his house.
The poor man has an audible alarm, three pit bulls, two deadbolts on the doors, bars on the windows, and let's throw in a motion sensing gun turret in the living room just for the sake of argument.
That the poor man has absolutely nothing of value worth stealing(the item of value in this discussion is marketshare, he is obviously the lesser target, he's poor) says *NOTHING* about the inherent security at his home. His is clearly the more secure of the two.