Statistically speaking, the more machines running a platform, the more users are likely to exist that don’t upgrade their security patches, or will allow malware to be installed on their machines. They want the best possible return on the investment of this time and manpower, so it makes the most sense to cast the widest net and go for Windows machines, simply because many many more computers in the world are going to be running Windows. , or the Mafia? Because they are organized, you can think of them as a business as well. We compared Hackers to organized criminals

Remember in the last edition of “Online Safety” when Like any business investment, malware and viruses take time and manpower to develop. When you look at the market share (bar graph above) that Windows computers have and see how they stack up against the number of OS X computers, this begins to become clear. ” This basically means that Macs are more secure than Windows machines because they have less exposure-that there are simply less Macs around to develop viruses for. Let’s take a look at the realities of viruses on the Mac platform.Īpple has been criticized by many for opting for “ What this doesn’t mean (and this is where the clever wording comes into play) is that Macs are somehow immune to viruses. So, those “140,000 known viruses” really are inert on Mac OS. Since viruses are programs too, Windows viruses can’t be run on OS X. What does that mean in non-nerd speak? That Macs can’t run Windows programs without running Windows.

Viruses are like any program-they have to be written with platform specific languages, with instructions written for that machine, operating system, type of processor, etc. This is interesting wording, because it is PC: Don’t be a hero! Last year there were a known 140,000 known viruses for PCs. You’d better stay back, this one’s a real hum-dinger. PC: I think I got that virus that’s going around. Many times, it can be hard to draw the line between what is the truth and what is simply advertising doublespeak. There are a number of truths to this, as well as a number of myths.

Macs have long been touted as the “virus-free” platform.

How to check mac for viruses