Why are there less viruses for Macs then there are for windows based PCs?

Question

Why are there less viruses for Macs then there are for windows based PCs (Windows XP,vista,windows 7?) Also,are Macs on a more secure operation system? How any viruses are there for Macs? Do you know any of the names?

Answer 1

As others have indicated, a big reason is that virus creators want to target the largest "audience." I think that Macs are indeed more secure because they're based on BSD Unix, but PC fans will debate me all day on that one.



Still, you cannot debate this: because viruses for Macs are EXTREMELY rare, that in and of itself makes them more secure. Think of it like this: Imagine two houses. Neither house has any more or less security features than the other one. One house is in the suburbs. The other house is in the ghetto. Despite that both houses can be robbed with equal ease, you would still consider the house in the suburbs to be more secure.



@Mr Anderson: Macs are built on BSD, not Linux. BSD is, in fact, more secure than Linux.

Answer 2

To answer 3 of your questions, there are no MacOS X viruses. There's not just a few or some, there are none. The last one that was released was in 2006 and it died out after infecting 49 Macs. There are over 1,000,000 forms of Windows malware, there are a handful of Mac trojans. A trojan is not a virus, the Mac user has to be gullible (free porn software) or greedy(torrent of Photoshop) and agree to download it and agree to install it with an admin password. And then ignore the warning that pops up on the Mac to tell you that you are installing a trojan.

Experts have decided that for a computer virus to successfully infect other computers, a system software needs over 17% of the market share. Macs are at 10%. So a computer virus for a Mac is doomed from the start. You cannot catch anything on a Mac by visiting a website, opening an email or clicking on an ad.

Answer 3

Viruses are old school. Most malware infecting computers now-a-days are Trojans.



And Trojans rely on social engineering (gullible/ignorant users).



Windows Vista and Windows 7 are surprisingly secure because of UAC (User Account Control), but many individuals turn it off and continue to run as Administrator. This leaves their computer very vulnerable to attack. And many don't update their system and software, leaving large security holes that can be exploited.



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I don't know of a single virus that infects any Unix-like operating system that is out in the wild and still effective. The ones that did exist in the past relied on exploits long since fixed, so they don't work anymore.

Answer 4

Mac OS X is built on the UNIX system architecture which protects root level access to the system kernel and critical system files required for overall system stability. Windows does not use the UNIX specification in the least bit; this allows exploiters to gain root access with relative ease due largely to the system kernel flaws in the NT kernel. The UNIX architecture is the most secure system architecture ever created for computing environments, which is why it is used for security critical operations. The only viruses I know for Macs are largely proof-of-concept tests to show that it is possible to mount a malicious service at the root level or in the system kernel. I don't know any of the names for possible common Mac exploits.

Answer 5

Mac OS X is a Unix based operating system similar to Linux. There are less (almost no) viruses for it because the file system is just different compared to Windows machines. It prompts for a username and password for any changes to the system while a Windows computer lets direct root level access to programs.

Answer 6

It is possible that there are more computer viruses and other malicious files or programs for Mac computers because more people use computers that run Windows.



Because of this, someone who is developing a computer virus would probably want to develop it for the OS that has the most people using it, in order to be more "effective" for them.



I'm not sure how many viruses there are for Mac computers, but they are out there, so I would suggest that you run frequent antivirus scans, as well as frequent antispyware or antimalware scans, just to be sure that your computer doesn't get infected with anything.



As for the names of those viruses, I'd suggest that you do a Google or Yahoo! search, in order to find out the specific virus names.



Good luck and I hope I helped you!

Answer 7

Why?



Because statistically speaking, there are way more PC in the world...so it's normal there are more PC infected!



Are Macs more secure?



Not really, but since the OS will fix everything for you, it's not as easy to forget something that will lead to "infection". So in a sense they are "safer".



How many viruses for Mac?



A lot, search the virus database and you will see that there are a lot, but it's not close to comparison with PCs.





Mac are more "secure" than PCs only because they don't offer as many options. They stay safe and unlike PC, they seem to test everything before launching an OS. But that's like saying my DVD player is even better than a Mac because it will never get any virus!!! Of course it won't because it's so proprietary that no ones even know how it works!!!

Answer 8

Since the Mac OS is built on top of Linux it is not susceptible to virus's. There is one known virus to ever unix/linux. The main reason that Windows gets them is the way that MS wrote the OS. Macs do have a more secure system than Windows, but MS is catching on.

Answer 9

You gotten replies with the major reasons; boiled down it's like this: Windows comes configured for looseness & flexibility so users can get "that rich Internet experience", without a lot of re-configuring.

(Subsequent updates from MS constantly try to tighten up that looseness).



Mac's have almost the opposite situation; they come with tighter configurations, which the user must manually reset to permit something to happen.

Answer 10

Simple, if you created a virus, and wanted to infect as many pc,s as possible, would you choose windows , which is % 95 + of all pcs or macs

I dont think there are many viruses fors macs, although i have read of these rogue /fake AV programs have started to infect them