Antivirus software makers: "Switch to Mac!" This linked article is in German, but shortly said: Both Symantec and Sophos, makers of antivirus software, in reports basically tell users to switch to Macs in order to be safer. Although 2006 saw more threats to the Mac platform, none of the worms/exploits actually made it into the wild thriving. We're still virus-free on the Mac platform.
The heise.de article asks why antivirus software makers tell users to walk to a safe place, which would basically eliminate the need for antivirus software on first sight, but the reason could very well be that Microsoft is more and more entering this market themselves, and if so, there's only linux and Mac OS X to go right now, if you need customers in the desktop client market. Either way: Good news for Apple and Mac users, I'd say.
You can get the PDF report by Sophos here. It says about "Macintosh" in a block called "what lies ahead": "Although the first malware for Mac OS X was seen in February 2006, it has not spread in the wild and not heralded an avalanche of new malicious code for Apple’s operating system. Hackers remain happy to primarily target Microsoft Windows users and not spread their wings to other platforms. It seems likely that Macintosh will continue to be a safer place for computer users to be for some time to come." Lucky me. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 17:49 [article link]