Mozilla Meets Willie Sutton
[As background, Willie Sutton was the chap who, when asked why he robbed banks, supposedly replied "Because that's where the money is."]
I blogged previously:
I have no doubt that if Mozilla/Firefox were the dominant web browser, or if OS-X were running 98% of personal computers, then the hackers would be finding security flaws in them, too. I just don’t think they’re looking.
I was proven “minor right” twice already.
Now I’m proven “major right” –
Firefox has unpatched “extremely critical” security holes and exploit code is already circulating on the Net, security researchers have warned.The two unpatched flaws in the Mozilla browser could allow an attacker to take control of your system.
…
The flaws were confidentially reported to the Foundation on May 2, but by Saturday details had been leaked and were reported by several security organizations, including the French Security Incident Response Team (FrSIRT). Danish security firm Secunia marked the exploit as “extremely critical”, its most serious rating, the first time it has given a Firefox flaw this rating.
Hat tip to pike speak.
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Of course. Nobody said that the Firefox people were better coders. The argument was always that virus writers would try to get the most bang for the buck. They do that by going after the largest target, i.e. Microsoft.
If Firefox has a small marketshare, the virus is simply not going to spread that quickly.
what has this to do with mac osx?
arguing that it's 'because mac has such a small marketshare' as a reason there are no viruses of note on that platform is ignoring not only the main reason virus writers do their deed (fame) but the technical aspects of the mac osx operating system
if virus writers do write their wares for fame, do you want to bet your farm that the first one to bring down the mac operating system won't be showered with attention (and a huge reward from symantec as has been rumored)?
as far as the architecture of mac (a unix/bsd architecture that does not allow illegal operations to take place in the first place, without specific authorization from the user, unlike windows), it's wildly different from windows, and it's ignorant to assume that a virus writer could wreak havoc if they wanted to, but they are bored because nobody has a mac.
is a mac invulnerable? technically no. but given the architecture of the operating system and the fact that apple actually proactively releases patches long before they become fathomable has up to this point precluded anything malicious.
alas, this bucket of cold water poured on macs has come from all sides lately because it's fun to trash the company whose new software (tiger) is being praised as vastly superior in every aspect to windows xp (who won't be releasing their update for another year and a HALF), following their wild success with ipod and itunes.
i suppose apple deserves it, like every other company does with a mercurial tyrant at the top (steve jobs) who just seems to continue his success despite critics.
but let's at least get the technical parts correct.