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
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.
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