Mac OS X and BSD found to be two safest computing environments

A 12-month study by the mi2g Intelligence Unit looked at close to a quarter million digital breaches to conclude that the open source BSD and Mac OS X operating systems are the most secure 24/7 computing platforms in the world. Interestingly, about 92% of all successful attacks were carried out against home users and small networks. Abandon hope, all ye who run Windows XP!

Linux was shown to be the most breached overall, largely via manual hacker attacks. But at the government layer, Microsoft Windows machines account for a whopping 58% of digital breaches.

DK Matai, Executive Chairman of mi2g, noted a trend in which individuals, government agencies and corporations are making a paradigm shift towards Apple and BSD computing environments:

“For how long can the truth remain hidden that the great emperors of the software industry are wearing no clothes fit for the fluid environment in which computing takes place, where new threats manifest every hour of every day. There is an accelerating paradigm shift visible in 2004 and busy professionals have spotted the benefits of Apple and BSD because they don’t have the time to cope with umpteen flavours of Linux or to wait for Microsoft’s Longhorn when Windows XP has proved to be a stumbling block in some well chronicled instances.”