A Computerworld.com story dated 22 March focuses on an announcement from Microsoft warning of vulnerabilities of Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 SP1. This comes weeks after a security company first reported an exploit and a day after a 2nd company confirmed ongoing attacks.
I use Windows XP to test websites… Microsoft still doesn’t have standards-compliant browsers, and IE 5 and 6 wrote their own rules on interpreting HTML code… Anyway, that’s all I use it for. Some of my Mac clients, particularly users switching away from the Windows platform still need to run Windows regularly. Realtors, for example, need Windows to run their Multiple Listing software.
Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion and Bootcamp make this not only possible, but easy. Being Mac users, tho, we tend to forget that the Microsoft end of things is still very vulnerable. After a bit of research, I bought BitDefender, a virus/spyware defense program that seems to work well with my installation. I don’t make any claims about that program in particular, but want to urge Windows-on-Mac users to have some kind of security app on their Win system.
Yes, your Mac won’t be affected by the crud out there. But, if you use Windows on your Mac, do you want that capability to degrade or be ruined? Reinstallaton is not terribly difficult, but is time-consuming, and do you want your data ruined? Do you want someone taking over your Win installation to send out spam? How about private data being stolen?
Don’t lock the barn door after the cow kicks over the lantern…
OR, let’s encourage the companies who produce Windows-only software, websites, etc. to wake up, smell the applesauce, and write for the Mac!
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
