Microsoft should share a large part of the blame for this

If some company had a monopoly on house doors and refused to install locks on the doors they sold, shouldn't they takes some responsibility for the subsequent wave of house robberies? Also, wouldn't an article about that wave of house robberies be badly incomplete without a mention of the company at all?

That analogy is an oversimplification of the relationship between Microsoft and the millions of personal computers running Microsoft software that are infested with malware these days. Nevertheless, Microsoft does have a near monopoly on personal computer software so their name should have been mentioned in the article. Also, I think it is fair to say Microsoft had no computer security for Windows 95, and they have been playing catch-up on the security front ever since.

In contrast, Unix (e.g., Linux and Mac OS X) has had an excellent security record from the get go. For example, Unix separates the root account (with God-like powers only required for administration of the system and to propagate malware) and user accounts (with limited powers that are extensive enough for normal use but which it is difficult for malware to use) with independent passwords for each.

Those in the know are abandoning Microsoft for Mac OS X and Linux partly because of the security concerns with Microsoft. However, Microsoft still retains a huge but slowly decreasing share of the PC market because they have the commercial power to force preinstallation of Microsoftware on most PC's, and naive computer users tend to go with whatever is preinstalled on the PC that they buy.

windoze

"Those in the know are abandoning Microsoft for Mac OS X and Linux partly because of the security concerns with Microsoft."

There could be all manner of security issues with the mac OS but creators of viruses will spend their energy creating ways around the windows OS, being the most popular. Most bang for the buck?

I used Macs exclusively from the time they were concieved. I still have a bunch of classic macs still working.
From the time these personal computers were created, the security was scant or non existent. Viruses existed as soon as computers could talk to each other, even on the mac. In fact Norton anti-virus was created and used to address macs security issues.
Interpetive computer languages made it possible to infect home computers, very easily. Windows computers were good for this creating open ends to access the most powerful low level functions, be it javascipt, window scripting host, DOS or whatever. These langauges increased the capability and speed to write software, or to act as wrappers to lower level functions.
The problem with windows is that they left too many backdoors in the operating system, most for good intentions. Without rewritting the whole thing, and dumbing it down they just add securiy patches that come in almost everyday.

Re: windoze

I have actually had no experience with Microsoft of Mac OS X (I have been using Linux on my desktop for the last 15 years), but my brother who was a rabid Microsoft fan for many years did recently switch from Windows to Mac OS X because he was tired of the hours of work each week that were required to attempt to keep his Windows box secure. And there are a lot of businesses in Victoria (and presumably elsewhere) that do nothing but clean viruses from personal computers running Microsoft. In contrast, I have never had a hint of a security breach with any of my Linux machines over the years.

I do agree that both Mac OS X and Linux aren't challenged as much by malware as Windows because malware authors tend to target the Windows desktop monopoly. But Unix systems do have a reputation for good security by design (rather than as an afterthought) so this reputation and/or the reality of that good security may be discouraging malware authors as well. A unique advantage that Linux has over the others is security by genetic diversity; there are more than 500 different Linux distributions. Many of those don't have a lot of use, but malware designed for one of the major Linux distributions such as Ubuntu is unlikely to work properly for any of the other major Linux distros. I am all for anything that makes malware authors work harder. :-)

To those who try to blame Microsoft for viruses:

Windows is popular, so it's the main target. Viruses are not hard to write and notoriously hard to differentiate from legitimate software by any algorithmic process, and the antivirus business is mostly reactionary, due in large part to the fact that most of the best ways to stop viruses from operating also stop most useful programs from operating.

Take UAC (User Account Control) for example: Vista started it and 7 continued it. Every expert/enthusiast I know has disabled it completely because it gets in the way of any "power user" computer usage, and because he/she knows how to keep viruses away without it. Viruses prey on those who aren't computer-savvy. Proper education is the only way to stop malware, spyware and botnets, and that's a fact.

airwin

You're brother must have been visiting some pretty bizarre sites to have to spend "hours of work each week". I consider myself a pretty broad spectrum user and only occasionally will I get a browser message saying uh, uh you don't want to continue on to that site.

edand is absolutely correct when he says, "Viruses prey on those who aren't computer-savvy. Proper education is the only way to stop malware, spyware and botnets, and that's a fact."

I'm currently running XP Pro with Windows Security Essentials. So far it works fine. If you run Mac or Linux you can get killed just as fast as with Windows, maybe not turned into a bot but killed just the same. Nothing is 100% secure.

edand and snert

My principal point remains that any story about computer security issues is suspect when it does not mention the computer monopoly that is the fundamental source of this problem. I say this when that monopoly is Microsoft, and I would also say the same if Mac OS X, Linux or any other computer operating system was the monopoly that was the source of the problem.

I agree with the general statement that it takes some due diligence to make any computer operating system secure against the most common threats out there. But from what my brother tells me that due diligence is _much_ easier for Mac OS X than for Windows, and I also have first hand experience that security is completely straightforward for Linux (make sure you have the first-class Linux firewall installed and keep your system updated which takes roughly 5 minutes per week because system updating is such a breeze with Linux). So I blame Microsoft for making their machines difficult to keep secure, and the horrific story told above about the general state of computer security is the principal consequence of that difficulty.

I attribute the user security ease for both Mac OS X and Linux to their Unix heritage where security was built in from the start. My brother decided to buy a Mac OS X for himself after a year or so of comparisons between his wife's Mac OS X computer and his own Windows computer. That switch (based partially on how easy it was to keep a Mac OS X computer secure) says a lot for someone who has been a Microsoft advocate and power user (probably much like you guys) for more than a decade.

A Little More Thought

Airwin: A little more thought, I think, could have gone into your posts. I would learn a lot more about computers and the internet if I had resources (money, tech savvy friends). We aren't automatically stupid or bad because we go with Microsoft rather than Linux. I would rather use Linux in fact. But I've been dealing with chaos (5 moves in 15 months for example), bad bosses, thieves, lunatics. And switching operating systems is only one of many things (ranging in importance) that I'd like to do. And I earn peanuts. I don't know you. I'm sure you're an okay person. Just saying...

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