Why OS X Shrugs Off Viruses
Smart people already know about this, but maybe I’m not that smart. Maybe you aren’t, either.
Giz Explains: Why OS X Shrugs Off Viruses Better Than Windows
There are a few different ways that Microsoft’s mammoth market share actually hurts Windows and helps OS X. For one, writing nastiness that the vast majority of the world’s personal computers are susceptible to is a more efficient use of resources than writing the same evil for a sliver of the population. In biology, a more homogeneous population is more susceptible to a genocidal plague. Same principle applies to the vast, Windows-powered ecosystem. I don’t mean someone could write a virus that wipes everybody out. Just that if everybody’s running Windows, the population is a much easier target.
The flipside of thisâ..which you might not have consideredâ..is that most malware writers obviously use Windows. They’re going to whip up code for the OS they’re familiar with and know best. And more to that point, most of the tools and scripts used to wreak havoc on computers are written for Windows. The same ecosystem that provides the biggest, most susceptible audience also provides the most fertile breeding ground for the nasty executables.