How do the Apple/Imac computer systems compare to the Windows Pcs concerning
the various security problems discussed in this group? Are they more or
less vulnerable to attack as the PCs? Is their firewall protection system
usefull.
Thanks
al
> How do the Apple/Imac computer systems compare to the Windows Pcs concerning
> the various security problems discussed in this group? Are they more or
> less vulnerable to attack as the PCs? Is their firewall protection system
> usefull.
Macs compare good while not being perfect.
Macs don't offer network services as default configuration, so there is
no need for a firewall or host based packet filter at first. They have
an implementation of ipf on board, because OSX is derived from FreeBSD
5.0. Its basic settings can be used very easily with a simple user
interface, while more complicated settings have to be scripted, though.
Here Apple is much better than Microsoft.
In other security aspects, Macs don't perform as good as with network
services and firewalls. While they have a design for using encrypted
volumes and are not using users with administrative rights as a default,
Mac OS X has had many security holes, too. Some of them were even
bad design, comparable to the bad designs of Windows. You can find
more about this topic, if you will search for "month of Apple bugs"
using a search engine of your choice. Here Apple is performing as bad as
Microsoft.
Unlike Microsoft, Apple does not do the mistake of not sending patches
immediately when holes are patched. Apple is offering patches
immediately when they're available. Here Apple is much better than
Microsoft.
More aspects we can discuss on c.s.m., if you want to.
Yours,
VB.
--
"Pornography is an abstract phenomenon. It cannot exist without a medium
to propagate it, and it has very little (if anything at all) to do with sex."
Tina Lorenz