Apple’s easy to hack after all?

Apple apparently left off tools that are available in the GNU compiler collection to protect against exactly this sort of attack. Dai Zovi even says that the current version of OS X is easier to hack than XP. Ouch.

Does this mean that Mac’s are less secure than PC’s? Not really, since they’re still such a small percentage of the market that they’re not under heavy attack by malware. Even though the capability exists to take advantage of this vulnverability, the return on time and effort is still a lot better on the Windows side for malware writers. Of course, someone could always decide that Macs are an underutilized target for malware and create something interesting.