Mac as Vulnerable as Windows?
Before I get into some bulk of the matter, some history. I am a die hard Windows user and I am not inclined towards Mac until the past few weeks where I have been doing some research on OS X. Some of the problems that I have with Mac is its expensive initial cost, softwares that I already own wouldn’t work on a Mac, learning curve that I need to follow in order to master Mac and lastly the pride that I need to swallow when my Mac friends find out about my switching of sides.
With all these things as the background, I was continuing my research when I came across an article that read “SANS notes sharp increase in Mac OS X flaws” by Jaikumar Vijayan for Computer World. As soon as I read this article I knew that this is exactly what I need to read to strengthen my research.
A brief synopsis from Jaikumar’s article reads this way – Just because you use a Macintosh, dont think youre any more secure than a Wintel user. A sharp increase in the number of flaws being discovered in Mac OS X suggests that the Apple operating system may soon be every bit as prone to malicious attacks as Windows systems.
Some of the things that attracted me to a Mac is its looks, high memory capability and the stability in terms of security. If Mac is as vulnerable as Windows, then the only two things that would attract me is its looks and high memory capacity. I have heard that Windows Vista which will be coming out next year will look very similar to OS X and be much more stable. Is it still a fair deal for me if I have to switch to Mac with all the overhead costs that are associated with a Mac?
Apple offers 10 reasons to switch to a Mac:
1. It works (plug and play)
2. It doesn’t crash (OS X is UNIX-based)
3. It offers the best in digital music (iTunes, iPod)
4. It provides the missing link in digital photography (iPhoto)
5. It serves as a digital entertainment center (iLife, iMovie, iDVD)
6. It’s portable (iBook, PowerBook, MacBook Pro)
7. It’s built for the Internet (email, iChat, QuickTime, AirPort)
8. Windows applications have Macintosh equivalents (Microsoft Office for Mac)
9. It networks with PCs (Ethernet, AirPort, USB, FireWire)
10. It’s beautiful (iMac)
When I look at this list, I am just sitting here awing. But there is still a long road for me to travel if I have to make the switch. My research will be in progress until I am totally sold upon Mac. If any of you have any things that might add to my research, please do so, I would whole heartedly appreciate it. Also, please give me some reasons why you guys think a Mac is better than Windows. Until the switch happens, I will continue to use Ctrl+Alt+Del.
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Filed Under: Windows
I know this is an older article, but I saw it and figured I’d comment anyway.
I think one main thing that might pique your interest with the Intel Macs is Parallels Workstation (http://www.parallels.com). It’s similar to VMWare, but it takes direct advantage of the virtualization instructions in the Intel Core Duo. It’s also reasonably priced, unlike VMWare. This means that you could have Windows running full screen at nearly native speed on your Mac, and with a single key stroke, be in a Gentoo Linux machine, or back in Mac OS X. Or both Windows and Linux windowed, along with the rest of your applications, just like using a couple of VNC and/or TS sessions. It should be very useful for web developers as you can carry one machine around, and test in Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Konquerer, Opera, whatever browser you can imagine, since you have the three major platforms right at your fingertips. Also with the new Intel Macs, as I’m sure you’re aware, Apple has released a program called Boot Camp, which makes it effortless to set up a fully working dual-boot Mac/Windows computer without losing any data.
I do believe that Windows Vista will fix many of the problems inherent in Windows currently, and with the new driver model it appears it will certainly be more stable than it is known for being. The only thing I really see as a problem will be the draconian DRM that will be included in the operating system… “Oh, your monitor isn’t approved by the MPAA! You can’t watch this DVD that you legally purchased, because you might pirate it!” Not to say that it isn’t going to go that road with Apple as well, because it most likely will, but it always seems that Apple has been less restrictive with their usage of copy protection schemes (Look up FairPlay vs. Windows Media DRM.)
As I mentioned before, with an Intel Mac you can get the best of both worlds – being able to run all the Windows applications you want either natively or in virtualization, as well as being able to use Mac OS X and all of its features. There’s even a project called Darwine, which aims to bring the WINE system from Linux/BSD to a fully working Aqua environment, which could remove the need for virtualization or dual booting for many applications, allowing them to run and look like a native Mac application.
As for the security flaws mentioned, I’m sure you and I both share the same view that anyone who believes their computer is immune to attack is totally out of their mind. Anything can be attacked, it’s just a matter of how easily it’s attacked. Most of the flaws found in Mac OS X recently are very difficult to exploit, and there have been zero remote attack exploits on default installs due to there being zero ports open on the Mac by default. Have a closer look at the security issues that have been released for Mac OS X, and you’ll see that most of them are patches for software such as Apache or OpenSSH, among others. Very few of the critical patches actually affect the software written by Apple that users run on a day to day basis. There has been one trojan/rootkit that I’ve seen for Mac OS X, called Opener. It is written in bash shell script, and uses a social engineering attack. It doesn’t spread, and has to be physically installed by the user.
I’ll admit that Mac OS has its flaws, but then again so does every OS. One of the main downsides to Mac OS is the kernel, which is basically a Mach microkernel coupled with the FreeBSD kernel. It’s very slow at highly intense computational tasks, but on the same note, very fast for multimedia tasks. I believe Apple may be looking into replacing the kernel with a vanilla FreeBSD kernel for OS 10.5, but don’t take my word for it. It’s also very stable – I have owned my 17″ PowerBook since December 2005, and it has only crashed on me once. I haven’t rebooted it in over three weeks, and it’s still running strong and stable. The same can be said for Windows, but you really have to pay attention and know exactly what you’re doing to get that kind of stability in Windows. I still reboot my XP machine once every few weeks.
I know it was a long post, but I hope this helps you more in your research! =)