Experts baffled by lack of malware…
If you’re a Mac user running anti-virus software, the only thing you’re likely to ever detect is malware that only affects Windows. Why? Well, despite endless predictions of doom, to date, only seven of the 236,000 known pieces of malware affect the Mac.
What’s more, not one of those seven is a virus, i.e. something that can independently propagate without user interaction.
It’s this practical lack of malware that has experts disappointed baffled, according to a write up on the subject from iTnews.
“With an estimated OS X market share of about five per cent on desktop systems we would expect to see more malware for OS X,” said security researcher Marius van Oers, McAfee Avert Labs, adding that malware is “pretty much non-existent at the moment.”
Unsurprisingly, as a security expert, van Oers has a knack for understatement when it comes the Mac. Not only does the Mac account for over 8 percent of overall computer sales (ie one-in-twelve), but also accounts for one in five of the notebooks sold to consumers.
In other more specific market segments, like higher education and content creation, Mac market share is 40 percent or higher depending on the institution and application segment.
Darn right we’re smug
Further, if only seven of 236,000 (0.003 percent) of known pieces of malware are Mac compatible, “pretty much non-existent” is for all intents and purposes truly non-existent. By way of comparison, according to iTnews, there are 700 pieces ( 0.2 percent of 236,000) of malware that target other forms of Unix, such as Linux or BSD, of which OS X is a cousin.
That said, if you added up the market shares of the various forms of Unix, including OS X, we’re talking about 10 percent of the computer market overall, but only 0.023 percent of the malware.
Still, OS X is far from foolproof as evidenced by Apple’s regular stream of Security Updates—there have been seven this year covering dozens of vulnerabilities. Eventually, something ugly’s bound to pop up. Eventually.
Regardless, without a single OS X compatible virus or even a trojan worthy of mention, it feels pretty darn good to be a Mac user…
What’s your take?
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November 9th, 2008
My take is the overwhelming majority of Malware for Linux is server side and patched very quickly. Many are distro related. I have never seen a Linux desk top with malware.
Feeling good myself.
November 9th, 2008
No thanks to Microsoft. Let us all stop using Internet Explorer and see what happens.
November 9th, 2008
Well if IE adopts webkit: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/06/microsofts_ballmer_considers_using_webkit_within_ie.html
Thinks might be different
November 9th, 2008
try to get a windoze machine that still hides Dos as it’s base, so xp, vista and likely v7 are all junk.
Try to get a windoze machine to do a real mans job, good luck!
Love my Os X
Never will I go back to a Pc junk!
November 9th, 2008
Dave… what?
NT-family Windows has NEVER had DOS hidden “underneath” it. That was the whole point of the “New Technology” idea. Windows 2000, XP, Vista, etc are all NT systems, so your point is completely void. If you were making a point about Windows 98 instead, for example, then it may carry some weight (not that I can see how it having DOS as a basis is relevant to the malware discussion, but it does seem to make it less stable)… but that OS is a long way out of relevancy for pretty much everyone these days, and I say that as a hardened 9x warrior who kept his 98SE machine going long after everyone else I know had moved to XP.
What’s this about “getting a windows machine to do a real man’s job”? A large number of “real” businesses run successfully off of Windows installations… and quite a lot off unix as well, I’d admit, but I’m not sure how many if any use Mac (if you count graphic design and marketing as “real man’s jobs”, then game on). Alternatively if you mean lugging bricks across a construction site and then building a wall from them, I’d be hard pressed to name an OS that could do such a thing. Amiga Workbench perhaps. Or Unix, if you’re using Emacs as your editor.
*sigh*
Back to the article, if that stuff is all actually true, then I know what I’ll be recommending my Aunt to buy when she goes out sometime soon to replace a cousin’s laptop – get a Macbook. The girl absolutely ruined the PC one with Malware and viruses and completely ignored all recommendations to put decent security in place (and the thing won’t even power on properly now I’ve gone through the whole process of cleaning it – I wouldn’t put it past Acer having not properly protected their BIOS, and some nasty thing has got in that’s corrupted it such that it can’t boot without the matching virus file being present on the HDD). Better to have a system where that’s practically impossible to do, even if it means relearning the UI and getting different programs to do everything with. Maybe running Windows in a VM if there’s absolutely no alternative for some things. Plus its always good to have diversity – an OS monoculture is far to susceptible to every single up-to-date computer suddenly being mullered by some clever infection.
BTW, wasn’t the oldskool Mac the system which played host to the first widespread destructive viruses – Michaelangelo and the like? Hopefully they can avoid a repeat any time soon.
November 11th, 2008
Sophos has a pretty interesting whitepaper, it’s dicussing whether Mac/Linux computers even need anti-virus;
https://secure.sophos.com/security/whitepapers/sophos-non-windows-wpus
November 12th, 2008
Much of the weakness in Windows stems from users running with Admin rights making every action taken potentially serious. Gates made a decision to make it easier for users prior to local area networking or the internet.
Lot’s of ink has been used postulating that the same model of day to day limited rights user in Windows would greatly lessen liabilities.
Microsoft has gotten so huge it’s impossible to just throw out everything and start over like Apple did with a tiny user and market position. Vista was late and features pulled because of Gates Secure Computing decree. It has succeeded to a large degree. No Blaster, Melissa or Slammer has paralyzed the country since then.
I was talking to one of Microsoft’s Security guy’s at a pre-Vista launch seminar who told me XP came very close to not allowing nonsigned drivers but because so much third party software was essential to the user base it was deemed logistically impossible given the timeline at that point. Looking at the howling over some of the practices of Apple’s App store it’s easy to see having the control has drawbacks. There’s been much yammering about Apple grabbing a chunk of Enterprise IT, but it’s not likely because of the way Apple does business. Doesn’t make it wrong just incompatible.