No, not really. It is a favourite argument of technology pundits who are either ignorant or employed by Microsoft-dependent organisations (or both), that as the Mac platform’s popularity grows, it is going to inherit the same crippling security woes that have plagued Windows users for years gone by.

Over the last few years Apple have systematically disproved all of these pundits’ other nonsensical arguments, and now that Apple is outpacing the rest of the PC industry’s growth by a considerable margin, it’s time to revisit the old ‘Macs have less viruses because they’re less popular’ myth.

First of all, let’s be clear. It’s not less viruses, it’s none. There are still no viruses in the wild for Mac OSX, nor have there been any in the 7 years since it was first released. This is in contrast to the 100,000 or more that exist on the Windows platform.

Security issues are about more than just viruses however, and what is of concern is that Apple seem to be less responsive to patching potential security exploits than Microsoft, as demonstrated in the results of a hacking contest held last week in which the Mac lost against both Windows and Linux.

Nevertheless, this is not indicative of the Mac platform becoming more susceptible to security problems as it becomes more popular. As tech writer Daniel Eran notes on his Roughly Drafted site:

Thanks to its extensive use of battle-hardened Unix and open source software, Mac OS X also has always had security precautions in place that Windows lacked. It has also not shared the architectural weaknesses of Windows that have made that platform so easy to exploit and so difficult to clean up afterward, including:

the Windows Registry and the convoluted software installation mess related to it,

the Windows NT/2000/XP Interactive Services flaw opening up shatter attacks,

a wide open, legacy network architecture that left unnecessary, unsecured ports exposed by default,

poorly designed network sharing protocols that failed to account for adequate security measures,

poorly designed administrative messaging protocols that failed to account for adequate security,

poorly designed email clients that gave untrusted scripts access to spam one’s own contacts unwittingly,

an integrated web browser architecture that opened untrusted executables by design, and many others.

Does malware development require some threshold of market share before it can exist? Is the malware ecosystem “irreducibly complex” in a way that prevents small pockets of malware from spontaneously developing to exploit smaller markets? If so, this would explain why Apple now has 20% or more of certain markets, but does not have even 1% of the malware market.

Alas, this theory is easy to crush. There have been many examples of thriving malware “serving” minor markets. Back when all computers used floppy disks, and floppies were easy to infect with boot sector viruses, Macintoshes of the Classic Mac OS era carried and transmitted viruses on floppies despite never having more than 8 to 11% of the market. Viruses were around because of a weakness, not because of the Mac reaching a certain market share threshold in popularity.

Even platform targets that are tiny to the point of insignificant are attacked by malware. Specific versions of small minority of Symbian phones were attacked by a Bluetooth virus, not because those models made up 95% of the phone market, but because there was an open flaw in their software that left them vulnerable to attack.

The idea that Apple will inherit Microsoft’s problems is based in the ignorance that Windows’ security problems are rooted in its popularity, rather than its poor architectural design. That is not true, as countless examples of viruses attacking minor platforms attest. Malware targets weakness, not popularity. Windows is plagued with malware, not because it is ubiquitous, but because it is riddled with weaknesses.

The Mac platform is certainly not bulletproof - security exploits are discovered and patched regularly like any other platform. It is statistically likely that viruses and other malware problems will one day exist. But even if and when this happens, this does not automatically mean that the situation will devolve into the security hell that is the Windows experience. As Daniel observes:

Creating Mac malware costs more because it is harder to write (fewer weaknesses to target), harder to keep working (exploits are patched), and too easy to clean away. There’s no Windows Registry that can be subverted to reinstall the malware the user is trying to eradicate, no clumsy web-based Windows Software Update and the Windows Genuine Advantage mess that prevents users from running updates; Macs are easy to keep up to date. There is simply no workable business model for Mac malware writers, not because the Mac market isn’t big enough, but because creating and maintaining a virulent botnet of Macs would be too expensively difficult to develop, given the lack of weaknesses to exploit.

Adding more Macs to the population does not change that. If exploited nodes on a network are too expensive to maintain, adding more nodes does not solve the problem. Mac malware is not sustainable as a business model, not because of limited market share, but because Mac malware costs too much to develop and maintain due to Mac OS X’s architectural strengths.

Security researchers like Charlie Miller, who correctly point out that there are Mac exploits to patch, fail to also recognize that exploits are only part of the malware problem. An exploit can plant a malware seed, but without a Windows Registry to nurture it and wide open ports and poorly implemented network protocols to spread it, any potential Mac malware can be easily uprooted before it ever matures. That serves to make planting Mac malware an unworkable business: there’s never a harvest.

If the world ever figures out that software doesn’t have to be horrible just because Microsoft’s has been for decades, real solutions could happen. Until then, the primary hope for gaining better consumer electronics software is being pushed by Apple by incorporating such software into its hardware products. The public doesn’t marvel that the iPhone has great software; they simply think of it as an impressive hardware device.

Technology is a complicated world. The Mac vs PC war has been raging for decades, mostly waged by those who have little knowledge of the complex workings of the tech world and little desire to. It is no secret that I am an advocate of the Mac platform, but this isn’t some sort of holy crusade I am emotionally invested in and in which for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose. I simply dislike misinformation, and there has always been a lot of it spread about Apple. And Microsoft. And just about anything else in which people have a stake. Such is the world we live in. To make wise choices we have to be informed and aware. I’m just doing my bit to help.