No Mac OS X-specific virus has yet appeared
Apple's Hot News points to a news article from SunSpot.net that says all the things Apple probably would like to but can't say:
As the latest Microsoft Windows infection spread across the Internet last week, knocking out thousands of PCs in homes and businesses, Macintosh users did what they usually do during a computer virus outbreak — they continued working.
And that's just for be opening bid. The rest of the article contains a number of interesting facts about life in the Apple garden without worms and vira:
- "Not a single Mac OS X-specific virus has yet appeared"
- "The number of viruses written for the classic Mac OS is about 50. By comparison, security experts estimate the number of Windows-specific viruses at about 70,000"
Open ports by default: 1 for OS X, 5 for Windows XP
My freshly installed version of OS X only has a single open port — port 427, which runs the Service Location Protocol (finds services on the network). Starting a rendezvous-based program, such as Hydra or iChat opens for port 5298. So it's reasonably to expect that default Mac owners are only exposing these two ports to the world.
My default Windows XP installation is another matter. Without starting any programs on my own accord, there's five open ports: 135, 139, 445, 1025, and 3389. The first is of course where Blaster makes its entry. The rest include NetBIOS and "Microsoft-DS".
Neither operating system has the build-in firewall turned on by default (despite what the SunSpot article claims of OS X).
