On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 07:55:37AM -0400, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
If popularity were the measure of relative OS security, then we would expect to see infection rates proportional to deployment rates
I don't buy that premise, or at least not without reservation. The OS market happens to be a superstar economy. On desktops and laptops, which still happen to be the majority of devices, the overwhelming winner is Windows. Therefore, if you are going to invest in any product for which you want ubiquitous deployment, Windows is the first platform you aim for. You only aim for the others if you're chasing a niche. There is no reason whatever to chase a niche market if your goal is spewing spam, collecting credit cards, or whatever. Perhaps fortunately, we're about to have an empirical trial of these different possibilities. If the above analysis is correct, then we should expect malware targetting iOS and Android in about equal proportions as those sorts of devices displace laptops and desktops as the majority (though there will be some bias and therefore lag in favour of Windows just because of the fact that people already have tools and techniques built around Windows). If you're right that the primary issue is the fundamental security of the target, then perhaps we will not see that pattern emerge. Best, A -- Andrew Sullivan Dyn Labs asullivan@dyn.com