[JamesP81]

No, I mean that the virus writers for those smaller platforms aren’t using Java as an exploitation tool - so that torpedoes your previous theory about just exploiting Java.

And yet, the virus writers continue to not write many viruses for Apple. Because there aren't enough of them. Now, maybe some virus writers just get a kick out of taking down Palms, who knows. Nevertheless, I've worked on the innards of both Windows and Unix based operating systems. Unix based OS's are harder to hack, true enough, but it can be done. If OS X eventually gets a large percentage of the market share, we're going to find that it has a lot more security holes in it than people like to believe. And since it's FreeBSD based, if someone ever does break it they can pretty much do any damned thing you want.

So whether you like it or not, OS X doesn't have the security problems Windows does because not even nearly the effort has been put towards it and that, my friend, is a fact, claims about Casios and Palms notwithstanding.

[Swordmaker]

And yet, the virus writers continue to not write many viruses for Apple. Because there aren't enough of them. Now, maybe some virus writers just get a kick out of taking down Palms, who knows.

Yet there are enough BlackIce Firewall computers that were not upgraded (12,000 vulnerable machines) for a hacker to write the sophisticated Witty Worm that infected all 12,000 of them within 45 minutes of the virus being released on the Internet.

So, James81, exactly how many Mac users will be enough to attract someone like the Witty Worm author to write the first viable Mac virus?

There are now 33,000,000 OSX Mac users. 2,750 times more machines than the Witty Worm was targeted toward and almost all of them naked on the internet—no anti-virus ware, no anti-spyware, no anti-adware—being totally ignored by hackers. Right. Sure.