When Microsoft (and their apologists) want to explain why they're OS seems to be a miserable piece of technology ridden with problems, they *deny* the existence of Security By Design, and say that the problem is because they are so wonderfully popular. They tell everyone that Security By Design doesn't exist and they'd be safe "if only they weren't so wonderfully popular!" They want you to believe only the gospel of Security By Obscurity.
This to me should be easily decided.
Certainly tech people experienced with viruses and capable of writing them should know whether it is more difficult to write viruses for Macs; or easier to write viruses for Macs than PCs; or about the same degree of difficulty.
If it is about the same difficulty as creating a PC virus or actually easier writing a mac virus. Then the Security by obscurity argument holds some water. - Tom
An article by David Zeiler in the Baltimore Sun, pushed the "security by obscurity" theory and quoted Graham Cluley, a "security expert" with Sophos, a company interested in selling anti-virus software (and obviously unfamiliar with Macs). Cluley stated:
"It's perfectly possible to write viruses for Apple Macs," Cluley said. "Indeed, a Mac has no more inherent security than a PC, but virus writers appear motivated by a desire to cause widespread havoc and so have concentrated on the market leader."
In response, many readers, most of them programmers with extensive experience on Unix based systems vehemetly disagreed. A later article by the same columnist retracted his original contentions of "security by obscurity" and quoted some of the naysayers.
"Your article, and Mr. Cluley's statements in particular, perpetrate a myth regarding the fallibility of *NIX [Unix-based operating systems] when compared to Microsoft Windows," said Burt Janz, a senior software engineer who is president and owner of CCS New England, a computer-services provider in Nashua, N.H.Janz has developed in all the major operating systems -- Windows, Unix, IBM Corp.'s OS/2, as well as OS X.
While creating a Mac OS X virus is not impossible, Janz said, "the degree of difficulty here is at least 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10."
Even harder is creating a virus or worm that could access the OS X system. The reason, Janz and several others pointed out, is in part explained by how Unix-based systems handle multiple users on the same machine.