Recycled rhetoric: x86 switch makes Mac’s less secure? Rubbish.

If it seems like I’m repeating myself, well, I am. But I just can’t believe that people—okay, analysts—keep spreading the same old nonsense. Take this ZDNet interview with Martin Reynolds (whose winsome visage you see at right), a vice president at Gartner Research:

According to Reynolds, Apple’s move to Intel means OS X now shares some common code with Windows, which could also open the platform to vulnerabilities.
“Moving to x86 means that the Mac shares some common code with the PC — example, network drivers. These drivers opened up a target attack weakness in the Mac that was discovered because the drivers have common components,” said Reynolds.

Now the first contention, that Apple’s move to Intel means sharing common code with Windows is something we’ve heard before. As far as I know, it’s totally baseless, but I’m not an engineer; if someone would like to correct me on that, go ahead.

Merely using the same processor architecture does not imply using the same code—Linux variants have run on x86 for years and they often use totally different code from Windows. I suspect the specific reference to network drivers is a tip of the hat to the Wi-Fi hack debacle, but that suggestion seems misleading, even setting apart the controversy. Sure, there may be commonalities in the way that network drivers are written across platforms, but I’m not sure that’s directly related to the x86 platform so much as it’s related to the way that you write network drivers.

Bottom line: Reynolds admits that his prediction of a hybrid Windows/OS X worm has come to naught, but Macs are still vulnerable to spyware and keyloggers. Theoretically. But they don’t really exist yet. So, in other words, practice safe computing. The same thing we’ve been urging practically forever.