Apple disclosing more vulnerabilities than any other vendor

Computerworld Australia vis Infoworld.com ^ | Aug 6, 2008 | Darren Pauli

[BRK]

Apple has taken the place of Microsoft for disclosing more vulnerabilities than any other vendor, according to an IBM security report. The company rose from second place in 2007 to take the top spot away from Microsoft, which had fallen into third place behind open source content management system Joomla.

[Theo]

;-)

[astyanax]

I think his only point was “Apple disclosing more vulnerabilities than any other vendor.”
That and gloating.
Your link is about as unrelated as my comments on gaming are.
(and I certainly have no intentions of defending Vista!)

[astyanax]

and in other news:
Microsoft issues massive security update for Windows, Office
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9112450&source=NLT_PM&nlid=8
I’m an equal opportunity gloater...

[Uri’el-2012]

New SQL Injection Attack Fuses Malware, Phishing (MSSQL)

new SQL injection attack that had infected thousands of MSSQL-based
web servers by last weekend, turning them into malware delivery systems.

[ColdWater]

running XP in a virtual machine (runs better than it did on my windows box)

Are you running microsoft OS on a Intel chip?

[Labyrinthos]

You sure are getting exercised about a difference of 0.7%.

You must have calculated the difference on your Mac. For the mathematically challenged, 3.2 is 28% more than 2.5. The difference is significant.

[antiRepublicrat]

Probably the most infamous open source project leader is Theo De Raadt, of OpenBSD, who is notorious for not playing well with others.

That's who I was talking about in #62, kicked off the NetBSD project.

[antiRepublicrat]

For the mathematically challenged, 3.2 is 28% more than 2.5. The difference is significant.

The difference in placement on the list is 0.7%.

[rdb3]

I’ll give you about 5 minutes before you’re overwhelmed by Linux guys...

Hey now.

[gost2]

I love the Mac adds. I can perfectly picture the real Bill Gates in the place of his pudgy stand in. Just love to see Billy squirm. The world’s ... and all history’s greatest robber baron/industrial pirate taking it in the shorts. he he he he he he

[ReignOfError]

>>>Is this a distinction you’re having a hard time understanding?

Apple was NUMBER ONE, not Microsoft.

You could have just typed "yes."

[Leonard210]

Do you actually believe reported vulnerabilities means the same as total vulnerabilities? Or are you just extremely happy that Apple is more forthright about its software than Microsoft is?

"No replies." Quite telling Terpfen. This was just a post to goad Mac users. This kinda stuff worked in High School. I have no idea why folks try it here however.

[6SJ7]

What I am doing today is exposing the APPLE fan orthodoxy that APPLE is near perfect and Microsoft is crap. This article tells a far different story and I wanted to have some fun with the "wound-way-too-tight" Apple crowd. I have succeeded in spades and have just had a great time with it.

"I know, I mean I thought a 'gentleman' was somebody that owned horses. But it turns out, his short and simple definition of a lady or a gentleman is, someone who always tries to make sure the people around him or her are as comfortable as possible."

Blast From The Past (1999)

[Swordmaker]

As I said, this I had from a tech who had the responsibility for the Windows infrastructure and had to support both PC and Mac and that he had Mac at home.

Then he doesn't know what he is talking about. Ask HIM to name them.

If I had a dollar for every Mac FUD spreader who says something like what your tech said who then adds "I own one," or "I use one," I'd be pretty rich. They add that detail to give their FUD statement more gravitas (remember that word?) than if it just issued from the mouth of an only PC user. Usually they "out" themselves with some other comment such as "I wish Apple would get rid of the one button mouse, though!" I think your tech guy's comment about Macs have just as many viruses as PCs comes under that category.

I could list the proof of concept OS X "Viruses" that have been announced in the past seven years—usually to similar chortles as seen in this thread from pundits who should know better—and it would take very short paragraph. Usually, they have a news life cycle of about three days before it becomes obvious that there is no "there" there. None of them has been successful in the wild. There are over 300,000 various malware for Windows PCs—some pundits put the number over 500,000—while there are fewer than ten Proof-of-concept viruses and trojans for the Mac. There are a couple of OS X trojans in the wild—but a trojan is just an application that masquerades as something beneficial when it is really malignant relying on fooling the user into downloading and installing it.

Macs are 8% of the US Market and more than 3% of the world Market. All things being equal, Macs should have something between 10,000 and 24,000 of the world's malware. It doesn't. If the ones that are in the wild actually worked, it would be perhaps TEN. That's a threat rate that is between 1000 and 2400 times LESS than the average PC user is afflicted with.

It's not because of obscurity. Not only are there 33,000,000 OSX Macs out there, Apple is a high profile company which trumpets its security. That is a red cape to the hacker bulls out there. For those who claim that hackers are after money, 90% of Mac users run their computers naked, without AV ware of any kind. They are also statistically more affluent with more assets and disposable income than PC users. They should be a prime target for fleecing, but it hasn't happened (yet!). Why not? A very lucrative Spambot can be created with a couple of thousand computers. Show me even ONE Mac spambot.

[Swordmaker]

Bottom line is that NUMBER ONE is still NUMBER ONE. And who is NUMER ONE in reported security vulneribilities? APPLE! All Apple all by itself in the number one spot. Spin it all you want, but these are the facts.

You are welcome to gloat. Enjoy yourself.

Yes, Apple reported more vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities that had been closed. If you look at the list, Apple includes patches for any UNIX application or utility that is included in the OS X distribution, even if it is NOT INSTALLED as part of the default installation. This includes, therefore, fixes for open source software that 99% of Mac users do not even have activated. Microsoft relies on third party software suppliers to provide their own updates. Apple includes a complete set of UNIX programing tools with OS X. There are patches and updates for many of those utilities that are accounted against Apple in these statistics even though they will normally not even be installed.

[Swordmaker]

OIC, so this is actually a good thing?

Of course it is a good thing. Everyone of the reported vulnerabilities is no longer in existence.

[smokingfrog]

I like Macs
I like PC's (sometimes)
I like Linux (cuz it's free)
I like this graphic

[saveliberty]

Sorry, but you don’t persuade me. He was responsible for dealing with viruses. He is Mac friendly and your inference is that he is not.

[BRK]

There are really no calculations required. If Reported Security Vulnerabilities was an Olympic event, APPLE wins the GOLD! Joomla gets Silver and Microsoft takes home the Bronze. They would be playing the Apple anthem with Steve Jobs up on the highest platform in the middle. After all the years of B.S. I have been hearing from the MAC folks, the fact that APPLE is on any "security" list, much less at the top is an amazing event.

I am bored with the topic now and I have had my fun, but what I could do is go back and dig through the FreeRepublic archives and pull up a few of the more choice quotes I have heard in the past form the MAC crowd concerning APPLE vs MAC and security.

[publiusF27]

No sense bringing up a lot of extraneous data.

Here's a data point which may seem extraneous to you, but doesn't to me:

Number of minutes I've spent dealing with security issues on my computers since going on the net in the late 1990's = 0.

That's zero minutes of my time in over ten years, and no problems have resulted. Maybe that's all going to change now that Apple is top of the disclosed vulnerability list. If that happens, I'll begin messing with security software for the first time in my life.