Vista security claim challenged

[flopticalcube]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6316253.stm

David Emm, senior technology consultant at Kaspersky Labs, said that with Vista Microsoft was treading a fine line between making the software safe and easy to use.

"The more useable and convenient you make it, especially for non-technical people, the more risk there is that there is a chink in the armour," he said.

The article does NOT mention OSX. Some sloppy research there and they could have found a more informed "expert".

 

[Chaszmyr]

I don't think we have any reason to believe that OSX is any more secure than Vista, especially at this early stage.

 

[clevin]

fine line between usability and security, thats right, OSX isn't in the position of figure out that find line yet. wait until u get 20% market share, thats when u need to worry about security problems.

 

[erikamsterdam]

fine line between usability and security, thats right, OSX isn't in the position of figure out that find line yet. wait until u get 20% market share, thats when u need to worry about security problems.

That is not entirely true. OS X will always have way less legacy code in it compared to Vista because it is not backward compatible with old OS 9 code. Vista still has DOS/Win95 crap in it that is filled with holes.
Apple made a very smart move to start all over again with OS X.

 

[clevin]

That is not entirely true. OS X will always have way less legacy code in it compared to Vista because it is not backward compatible with old OS 9 code. Vista still has DOS/Win95 crap in it that is filled with holes.
Apple made a very smart move to start all over again with OS X.

i sure agree with u, but before the reality comes, all u said is only suggestion and guessing, before hacker really pay attention to it, nobody knows how safe it is.

safer? probably, but how much? 20% safer isn't good enough.

 

[MisterMe]

fine line between usability and security, thats right, OSX isn't in the position of figure out that find line yet. wait until u get 20% market share, thats when u need to worry about security problems.

That old discredited marketshare argument again But, where did you get that 20% figure? Don't bother. The smell gives it away.

 

[semaja2]

security... intresting word...

windows is most likely more prone to a hacker breaking in rather then just making malware, however think about this...

Say someone hacked a adium mirror (or any other big app) and included one line in the code that simply wiped your homedrive? or maybe it installs a daemon that opens adverts every 10 seconds? they are all possibly withOUT the use of the admin key

Let see about limewire.. someone decides to have fun and adds the line into the installer to wipe everything from your system, since limewire already asks for the admin key you would never know what hit you.

 

[patrick0brien]

There's a big difference between being attacked, and being breached.

Install base (not market share) only affects attacks.

BTW let's not forget MoAB, these guys are actively trying to find critical bugs, and have only found obscure ones.

 

[dpaanlka]

Surely some Apple hater out there in the past 7 years would have tried to create a real working Mac security breach by now.

 

[SMM]

fine line between usability and security, thats right, OSX isn't in the position of figure out that find line yet. wait until u get 20% market share, thats when u need to worry about security problems.

nope - not correct. you have overstated your point. security and market share is not a proven fact - merely supposition.

 

[iW00t]

I wouldn't worry.

Until you can freaking get exploits where rendering malformed HTML in your email client can install a rootkit in your OS, any system is better than Windows.

 

[barnaby]

fine line between usability and security, thats right, OSX isn't in the position of figure out that find line yet. wait until u get 20% market share, thats when u need to worry about security problems.

1. If you have more users, releasing patches is more expensive.
2. If you have more exposure, there is more interest to break your system.
3. If you have more exposure, subtler flaws are more likely to be discovered.

I agree with these three premises. I certainly don't agree that Apple isn't in a position to worry about balancing security and usability. That is patently absurd.

Apple's website ranked 11 for number of visits last year. It runs on Apache 1.3.33 (Darwin). Should they not be worried about the security of the machine that runs their webserver? Or should they make it hard to use for the rest of us?

Maybe you should tell Amazon that they don't need to worry about the security of their inhouse developed servers because they are the only one that use them.

Perhaps you mean only security of end users? But if you're trying to defend Microsoft, they had a much larger market share when the majority of their end users logged in regularly with superuser privilleges available to every program.