Thread: Mac or PC
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Old 06-30-2003, 01:55 PM   #30 (permalink)
terit
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Ok, I did a bit of looking around because I knew I had read an article on this subject. It turns out that the article was on attacks in general, which include viruses as well as other types of attacks. I would be expected, Windows is the most vulnerable while Macs are the least with other OS's falling in the middle. Here are a quote from the article:

Quote:
Most of the known software vulnerabilities announced in 2002 affected Microsoft Windows (44%) followed by Linux (19%), BSD (9%) and Sun Solaris (7%). By comparison only 0.5% of the vulnerabilities announced in 2002 affected SCO Unix, and 1.9% affected Mac OS and Compaq Tru64 systems respectively.

This pattern is mirrored by the overt digital attack data collected for 2002, which demonstrates this has been the worst year on record with 57,977 attacks having already taken place. The most attacked operating system in 2002 has been Microsoft Windows with 31,431 attacks (54%) followed by Linux with 17,218 attacks (30%), BSD (6%) and Solaris (5%). Apple Mac's OS suffered only 31 overt digital attacks, i.e., 0.05% of all attacks in 2002 although Apple Mac has roughly 3% of the world's computer market share. SCO Unix suffered 165 digital attacks (0.2%) and Compaq Tru64 suffered 10 attacks (0.02%).
The firm estimates lost productivity from direct attacks to be as much as US$40 billion, with most of that damage occurring to Windows networks.

Here is a link to the report: mi2g

Additionally, I found a website that reports that a total of only about 40 viruses even exist that affect the Mac. There are ones that are a result of them affecting Microsoft Office programs in general (which is on Mac and Windows both).

Here's another fairly extensive link: Viruses and the Mac FAQ

Note that neither of these articles take the effort to break down the threats between OS9 and OSX, so the numbers could actually be lower depending upon the version you use.
terit is offline  
 

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