Intel doesn't make Mac more vulnerable
updated 05:25 pm EST, Mon January 30, 2006
Intel Mac vulnerability
Answering concerns over Apple's switch to Intel-based processors, one analyst assures that Macs are still relatively safe. Larry Seltzer of eWeek says that although non-Mac (traditionally Intel-based) computers are typically more prone to attack than Macs, "rarely, if ever, are the existence of vulnerabilities related to the specifics of one processor architecture versus another." Seltzer maintains that familiarity with Windows on an Intel platform does not equate to familiarity with Mac OS X on an Intel platform. "If Apple's market-share shoots up and attackers suddenly have a better shot of finding Macs to attack, then more malware will be written to the Mac. But it won't be any easier to exploit for being on x86."
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Not so fast
They will be proved wrong in the long run as more people will have access to Intel Macs - or a hacked Mac OS X to run on any generic PC. There are exponentially more people familiar with x86 assembly than there are with PowerPC.
The more exotic a platform is and the less familiar people are with its innards, the less vulnerable it is. We won't be suddenly seeing the appearance of regular viruses, trojans, or emailing worms of course, as those really don't have anything to do with the CPU architecture. What is likely to appear are exploits for vulnerabilities in standard Unix software, same as is the case with exploits for Linux running on x86. Not a big liability, but less secure than a PowerPC-based Mac nevertheless.