Macs: Not as Secure as We Thought?

— -- Well, I don't know about other security professionals, but I'm not at all shocked that this year's PWN2OWN contest showed that both Windows PCs and Macs could be cracked. I do have to admit that 10 seconds was a bit of a shocker for the Mac Platform.

Look, I have put my faith in OS X since 2003, but I'm not one of those Mac zealots who think that Macs are infallible. There sure are less of us than our Windows using brethren. So, we're a smaller target simply because the user base is smaller. That's one of the reasons there haven't been as many Mac viruses. But the contest also showed that the recently launched IE8 could be hacked too (although I'm sure it took longer than 10 seconds). Those mere 10 seconds keep echoing in my head.

The moral of this story is that no OS is perfect or fully secure. Neither are the Web browsers we use every day which are so tightly integrated and intertwined into the OS. Should we panic and become paranoid? Not a chance...driving, flying and many sports have inherent risks...it's just a part of playing the game.