Everyone knows that Microsoft products are the main targets of malware and hackers, and Adobe products are catching up in this regard. What’s more, some pundits think Apple may be next.

Marc Maiffret, co-founder and chief technical officer of eEye Digital Security, told “InfoWorld” (http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/the-security-hole-baton-passes-microsoft-adobe-129?source=rss_infoworld_news) that “most people in the Apple world have a false sense of security and an elitism.”

“I took some heat recently for saying Apple was way behind Microsoft on security,” he says. “Look who they just hired for security — Window Snyder, who played a lead role in helping Microsoft turn around their security. That shows the company starting to move past the denial part. It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here.”

Obviously, I think that Apple needs to make sure that it is doing it’s part for security — things like automating the minimum two-account setup where the user isn’t running daily in the administration account. However, saying that Apple is increasingly looking like the next big security target is something that some experts have been doing for years.

Eventually they may be right. Heck, even a broken analog clock is right twice a day. Meanwhile, the security pundits have had a very long day. A day nearly 10 years long where the biggest threat is the very rare trojan or phishing attack. Apple still needs to be sure that security is front and center. In fact, they can actively use that to promote and justify their tight control. 

(Thanks to J. Scott Anderson for his help with today’s column.)

— Dennis Sellers