John Gruber of Daring Fireball today linked to a most interesting piece which puts the recent Mac OSX security vulnerability news into the proper perspective. John writes:
“Great ZDNet UK editorial slams McAfee for trying to scare Mac users into buying their Mac anti-virus software with exaggerated and false claims regarding the current state of Mac OS X security:”
It may be true, as McAfee says, that from 2003 to 2005 the number of discovered Mac vulnerabilities increased by 228 percent while Windows only saw a 73 percent increase. But that’s like saying that in the last decade, deaths caused by choking on ice cream were up by 200 percent while deaths from smoking only went up by ten. Like the ice cream, shining light on McAfee’s claims makes them melt away — when we asked the company how big the risks actually were, it admitted that there was “no significant risk” at the moment.
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