It doesn't appear that Symantec chief executive John Thompson's next computer will run Windows.
"We think more people ought to buy them," Thompson said of Apple's Macintosh computers, in response to a question from the audience at the Future in Review conference in Coronado, California on Monday. The "target-rich" environment created by Windows vulnerabilities means that virus writers and hackers have set their sights on Windows PCs, he said.
However, Thompson noted that if more and more people did go out and buy Macs, virus writers might change their tactics. And many attacks are increasingly of the phishing or identity theft variety, which targets computer users independently of their operating system, he said.
"We shouldn't assume that any one technology at any layer is sufficient to protect our notion of a connected world," Thompson said. Computer users and network operators need to take many steps to ensure their data will be protected, regardless of which products they use, he said.
Security problems haven't gotten as much attention from the US government as Thompson had hoped, although things have improved compared with four years ago, he said. Still, computer "security has fallen off the (government's) radar screen with budget issues and the war in Iraq," he said.
However, Microsoft's move into the security software market has clearly gotten Thompson's attention. "We are concerned (whether) they will play fairly. If they do something that is unfair, then that will be something that is difficult to compete against, but we'll have other venues for making our point," he said.
Talkback
True, true. Getting a Mac really works. I've switched, and have absolutely no problems with malware.
Great. Now maybe Symantec can get their Symantec Web Security filter to work with the current OS X - Safari combo.
Another alternative is Linux. Faster, safer, more stable, and more secure than windoze. It's true you may have to learn a bit about its operation but maybe learning is not a bad thing. I ran a Linux server for 3 years without a reboot, lockup, or automatic shutdown, no spyware, malware, or virus's. Try to make windoze stay up for a week without problems.
Mr Thompsons remarks are consistent with the ignorant statements i am used to hearing from C level individuals. Instead of people going out and investing another $1000+ dollars in a Mac when they already have a Windows PC is surely the fix for Virus and other malicious code. This sounds like a doctors solution to illness, treat the symptoms and not the root cause! Instead, AV, security and companies that product operating systems should be writing better code. The government needs to create greater penalties for those creating and distributing malware, spyware and Virus code and make efforts to police code that is publically available. There is no reason that an application should be available for download, by anyone, that makes it easy to write malicious code. Treat the root of the problem, not the symptoms. The Firefox browser is a prime example, everyone thought that this was a more secure browser until more patches were release for it in one week then were released for IE in an entire year, the same will happen with the Mac community as soon as the market share is there.