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Think your Mac is secure? Think again

Most people seem to think that Macs are inherently more secure than PCs. And why wouldn't they? It's not often that you hear of someone having a virus or a security breech on a Mac OS, while these are huge concerns for people in the wonderful world of Windows. But this doesn't necessarily mean that Windows machines are any less secure than, say, a Mac Book Pro running Snow Leopard. In fact, in reality it is the Mac that is technically less secure in many ways. PCs have numerous anti-exploitation technologies built-in that Macs do not, such as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Together, ASLR and DEP make it much more difficult for attackers to carry out a successful attack or exploit. It should be noted that Apple is working towards fully implementing ASLR in the future, but they have only made slight progress so far. Microsoft works extremely hard to make sure its operating systems are absolutely as secure as they can possibly be, while Apple seems to be a little more lax about it. I also found a quote from a security researcher that I found very interesting:

"If you look at the number of published vulnerabilities in software and the number of users and compare Windows versus Mac OS you will discover that Mac OS has far more published vulnerabilities per user than Windows does so I think the data pretty much speaks for itself."

Application usage also largely dictates security, particularly when it comes to web browsers. Firefox and Internet Explorer are the two major browsers on Windows systems, and Safari is Mac's main browser. Care to guess which one has the most security flaws and vulnerabilities? Yupp...Safari. Everyone knocks IE, but especially with IE 7 and 8, there have been great improvements and experts agree that it is much safer than using Safari. For an interesting little comparison of the three browsers, click here.

So, given all of this, it seems like a minor miracle that Macs aren't plagued with more viruses, trojans, and intrusions than PCs. But let's not confuse "secure" with "safe" here. It all boils down to one thing: market share. Although Macs are gaining in popularity, Microsoft still has an incredible stranglehold on the market, meaning that it is far more productive for attackers to gear their work towards PCs because it will impact more users. Eventually I think Macs will reach a point where enough people willl own them to make it worth the attackers' time to exploit more of the vulnerabilities, at which point Apple will have to be ready to defend itself. Otherwise, what is seen today as a safe OS will no longer be so. It should be interesting to see if they will be more proactive than in the past when it comes to security, or if they will take the "wait and see what happens first" approach.

The truth is, when it comes to OS security, the new Windows and Mac OSs can be as good as they can be bad; it's all in how you use them. If you don't use anti-virus software and you click on every link that looks enticing, download every file that you receive in an e-mail, download music/movies/pictures from who-knows-where, run Flash, Javascript, and ActiveX by default, and don't update your operating system or your software, I promise you will be infected very quickly, regardless of your operating system. But if you take proper measures, your Windows Vista or 7 (and dare I say XP) PC can be just as safe and secure as a Mac running Snow Leopard, and vice versa. So for all you Mac users out there, you're "safe(r)" for now, but not necessarily as secure. As for people who are shopping for a new computer, for now I'd suggest getting a Mac if you're either too lazy or not computer savvy enough to configure security on a PC. You can do a lot more roaming around the Web with an out-of-the-box Mac  before you get infected than you could with a PC.

Here are two great articles if you want to know more (and I promise the links aren't infected, so you can click on them regardless of your OS and browser) PCWorld and CNET

-Mike