Mac and Unix Based Viruses?

Question

Why are Mac and Unix based machines less likely to get viruses than Windows machines? Are there any types of viruses out there that are based for Mac and Unix?

Sources please...

Answer 1

Windows is the most popular operating system.

Therefore a virus would be more beneficial if it targeted the most users.

This has raised several security issues, forcing Microsoft to review windows security.



Macs are lot less popular, and don't make a good server platform.

Therefore a virus would be tar getting a lesser section of users. Also it would have less result, since most company's store secure information on their servers (however behind heavy firewalls so isn't that much of an issue)



I would like to point out that Macs themselves are less secure, and very vulnerable to remote shell scripts, which is worrying. The reason is that Macs have less firewalls built for it, and the inbuilt firewall is how should i say... ****



source;

http://www.milw0rm.com/video/watch.php?id=65



Also a lot of shell scripts readily available for osx.



Unix is the most secure Os out there, its very hard to crack. Most professional firewalls use OpenBSD or another unix variant. Cisco use unix for their products.

Answer 2

They are less likely to get viruses because they are not as widely used as the Windows operating system. People that create viruses want to affect the most people they can so they base their efforts on windows. yes there are viruses that affect MACs and Unix, but they are few and far between.

Answer 3

Generally, because Windows systems are more common than Mac or Unix, so the virus spreads quicker.