Ajinkya,
Welcome back. Where have you been? I have also been hardly active.
I am aware of such reports. But in any case thanks for the link.
A few comments:
In the above I have talked mostly about malwares (virus, worm etc). I did not cover hacking which is a different thing and your referred article points to. Hacking is basically getting root access to a computer so that the hacker now 'owns' the computer.
No OS and computing environment is absolutely safe. I already pointed this out in my previous post. It depends on the users.
However, a unix based system is inherently a few orders of magnitude safer than for example a MS OS. These days safety is basically ensured through network safety. One can set up rules based on the so-called IP-tables that are pretty hard or well-nigh inconceivable to break in. It hardly makes any sense to talk about security of a computer without knowling the security of the network.
Usually the router (with security rules, hw/sw implemented)is kept open to the Internet. Then your servers are placed inside with public IP numbers in a so-called DMZ (de-militarized Zone) and then the computers inside the network in a MZ. The computers placed inside the MZ basically have no security threats, basically from outside.
Now for a standalone computer, let's say at home, placed in a network provided by your home ISP, will have some of these security features already in place, but preventing the machine from hacking is not so difficult, by setting hard rules. To give you a simple example: you can set your computer so that no remote access including scp, ssh is allowed, while you can ssh and scp from your computer. Now unless somebody can get physical access to your computer, there is no way somebody is going to own your computer.
It looks to me your referred report talks about Mac computers where direct physical access was given to potential hackers. This is a very unlikely event to take place, unless your machine is first stolen.
In addition, the report does not talk about what were the security principles implemented on the machine. It just gives very vague reference to all these things.
In a unix based system (like a Mac OS or Linux), there are very clear-cut ways to stop all software communication ports, or to set rules for their use, and hence security is better organized. That does not mean you cannot get in, but it's a very difficult job if your door is well shut.
I feel a bit starnge about your link, because it keeps talking specifically about the Mac OS X and not any other unix based OS. Because apart from a few minor difference, the basic security implementations would be very similar. Without provision of more details, I'd take this sort of report with a pinch of salt (as a propaganda against the Apple). But again as I said before, security depends on the individual user. If you keep your doors open, you are likely to be robbed off more often. But in a Unix based system, you are far better off to start with.
Regards.
