Expert: Apple is 10 years behind Microsoft in handling vulne

[razorsedge]

Attacks on Mac OS X will increase, as the threat landscape will shift away from Windows and focus on platforms that have a smaller market share, believes one of the top security experts from AVAST Software, Ondrej Vlcek CTO AVAST Software.

“I think we will be seeing more and more attacks towards Mac. Of course, it’s still a minor platform in terms of market share, currently estimated to be between 6% and 7%, compared to something like 92% or 93% for Windows. For attackers it’s much easier to focus on 90+%, but that’s changing; the market share is growing all the time,” Vlcek said.

More importantly, Vlcek noted while speaking to Softpedia, that Apple has some issues in the way it deals with the security of Mac OS X. Essentially, AVAST’s CTO revealed that Apple is now where Microsoft used to be a decade ago in terms of how the Cupertino-based company tackles vulnerabilities.

“And also as the platform is getting more popular it’s quite evident that there are a lot problems in the security of the Mac OS in general. What I mean is that Apple’s approach towards security vulnerabilities is not very fortunate. It somehow reminds me of Microsoft’s style from maybe eight, ten years ago,” he added.

[wassamatteru]

It's blindingly obvious that the reason Apple was able to maintain its absurd reputation for security in Mac OS was that so few people used it (and more importantly so few key organisations) that it wasn't worth hackers time in exposing the weaknesses. Apple has never planned for success in its market share so it's no surprise that it never planned for failure of its software security either. Frankly it amazes me that the company even still exists!