From: David Ensteness (denstene_at_mac.com)
Date: Fri Apr 16 2004 - 11:47:41 PDT
On Apr 16, 2004, at 12:48 PM, Joel M. Sciamma wrote:
> DJ Vollkasko wrote:
>
>> If you haven't updated your virus scanner within the last two weeks,
>> do it
>> now.
>
> Given the amount of hassle they are, I never used one but that's the
> wonderful thing about using 'obsolete' kit.
>
> Newts, MacOS 9.2 and no modern MS software means the likelihood of a
> virus
> is so small as to be not worth the trouble.
>
> I see that Apple's market share is now down to 2.5% and take-up of Mac
> OS X
> is just 40% of the installed base - what self-respecting virus creator
> is
> going to bother having an impact on so few? ;-)
>
> Joel.
Let me ask you this. If you want to be a famous robber, how do you get
famous? Robbing a ton of banks and businesses, or robbing the hardest
to rob bank or business?
The answer of course is either and both.
Apple's market share is number of Macs sold out of the total number of
computers sold in a given time. That is different that the installed
base. The installed base is how many Macs there are and how many other
computers there are. The installed Mac base is around 30 million. Now
the Windows installed base is around 300,000 million or something.
Thing is, the Apple/Macintosh market share various quarter to quarter
and is affected by the number of computers sold each quarter. Market
share is not how many people are using your product, its how many
bought your product in this three month period.
Now, second: MS's numerous software security vulnerabilities in the
recent years have included past technology. The vulnerability that
allowed SoBig to do so much damage affected Windows NT 3.0 and forward,
so you can even use "obsolete" MS products and you are still very
possibly stuck. On top of that MS typically does not offer security
updates for what they consider now unsupported systems, ie, Windows
OSes prior to 2000.
Lastly, getting back to your final point about getting famous and
impacting users. Hitting UNIX based systems is so terribly hard than
hitting Windows based systems is far more practical. It also depends on
your goal, you want to affect a lot of people, you need to affect UNIX
systems to take down the internet. There are 13 (?) primary DNS servers
in the world [DNS servers that are high enough in the internet
hierarchy that without them DNS changes do not filter down]. They run
UNIX. Now if you are able to take down ... I want to say the magic
number is 7 ... of them then the internet stops functioning.
That would affect ALL internet users. Far more than attacking a chunk
of Windows users [which is huge in and of itself but not in comparison
to all internet users].
If you want to get famous, especially among others in your field, doing
what is hardest rather than simply proliferating as much as possible in
the easier areas of your field is a very respectable way to be known.
Mozart did not write the most music ... but he did write what many
consider exceptional music.
So in conclusion:
Self respecting virus creators who want to do something very difficult
will attack UNIX based systems like Mac OS X.
Such virus creators are not attacking 2.5%, they are attacking the
installed base of UNIX systems and those people who connect to them (in
the specific case of Mac OS X users exclusively that number is
somewhere around 15-20 million people).
MS software, no matter if it is "current" or "modern" or old and
obsolete is still greatly affected by the security, virus, and worm
attacks made against MS products.
David
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