Silicon Shecky

We all know that Mac fanatics claim how secure Mac OSX is. Is it really that secure though?

The last couple of months have not bee kind to OSX. The Mac operating system has seen its first round of widespread malware. Apple has been busy playing whack-a-mole trying to stop it. The Mac fanbois have been denying it. Apple is still more secure they claim. If this is true, then how did Apple top the Stack of Shame this week?

The reality of the situation is that Apple is entering uncharted territory for OSX. Not only does it have enough percentage of the market to make it a more viable target for the underground Internet, but it doesn’t have a true plan in dealing with such issues. This was shown by Apple’s response to the MacDefender malware. The denials, the bad press, and finally a solution that keeps getting circumvented. Yes, overall the amount of people infected might be small beans, but it is a larger outbreak than ever before, plus it shows that it can be done.

The next question comes in with these 26 vulnerabilities, how quickly will they be patched? That is the key to preventing exploitation of said holes. Is Apple ready to do monthly patches, weekly patches, out of band patches? How will they respond to all of this?

No Operation system is 100% secure. There is too much code, too many different vectors to attack from, and there is always the end user who is the biggest threat to security. Apple response to the OSX security issues should enlighten us to the iOS plans for security issues. No, there aren’t many now, but there will be.