Security by even MORE obscurity?

[MegaSignal]

In light of the fact that PowerPC is history, consider the following:

I currently own both a 2.0 G5 Power Mac (second generation., best computer I've EVER owned) as well as one the last iterations of the iBook G4 laptop.

Wondering out loud. . .

Now that Apple is full speed ahead with Intel, would this mean that possible virus/worm/trojan infections would be practically nill with regard to this "older" technology? (security by even more obscurity?)

(Apologies if this has been talked about previously...)

Your thoughts and comments welcome!

 

[SilentPanda]

Most times malware is an exploit of an OS and not of a processor. So the difference this will make is marginal at best.

 

[Doctor Q]

There's a flipside: If there was a processor-specific security issue, Apple would be more likely to fix it promptly, or fix it at all, for Intel-based systems. So older systems could in fact be left more vulnerable, even though, as you say, they may be less likely to be targeted.

Fortunately, this is all hypothetical so far.

 

[mkrishnan]

Most times malware is an exploit of an OS and not of a processor. So the difference this will make is marginal at best.

This is true in general, although with respect to things like buffer overruns, it was my impression that the processor involved is crucial to understanding how the system responds once the overrun occurs in the OS?