[X Newbies] Apple and all of these viruses?

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Saturday, Aug 23, 2003, at 04:11 Canada/Eastern, Randy B. Singer 
wrote:

> I would also prefer to believe that it can't be done.  But I'm not 
> naive.
>  I can only guess that the reason that no OS X viruses have appeared
> before now is because Mac users tend to be more mature than Windows 
> users
> (think of the hundreds of thousands of children who purchase Windows 
> PC's
> to play games with them, and who have too much free time, and who 
> decide
> it might be cool to create a virus). I'm sure that is one of the major
> reasons why there were so few viruses for OS 7/8/9.

Randy offers the cool voice of reason and common sense, but I think 
he's still somewhat naive. The chief reason for absence of Mac viruses 
is neither better security, nor a better quality of users. It's simply 
that Apple has less than 5% of the market share, and that less than 5% 
percent is not in any crucial area. This has two consequences. First, 
the pool of potential authors of malware is much, much smaller than for 
Windows. (Possibly, this is even further restricted by the 
higher-income demographics of that tiny fraction of the market.) 
Second, there is virtually no incentive to attack Macs. What most 
malware authors crave is notoriety, if not for themselves at least for 
their products. There is no notoriety to be had in attacking Macs. 
Write a worm that cripples Mac e-mail systems, and you might make page 
40 of the New York Times -- if your masterpiece is particularly nasty. 
Forget about CNN or BBC anytime, let alone primetime. Write one that 
buggers Windows -- and the whole world will be talking about you.

f