Is OS 9 more secure than OS X?

gobble gobblegobble gobble
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I clipped the following from the SecureMac website:



"What does this mean for developers, Mac OS 9 is still more of a secure OS than Mac OS X is. The session advised developers to develop for Mac OS X rather than OS 9. Governement agencies still wont use Mac OS X in their environment because of the issues still within it. Mac OS 9 - We hope developers still do their development on it to create a even more secure environment and Apple works on updating and making Mac OS X secure as its previous systems."





I was under the impression that OS X was as safe as anything and getting more so (it even includes a built-in firewall), and that Unix is widely used in the government already. And wasn't OS 9 primarily protected by it's obscurity rather than great security features?



Not that I'm paranoid, just curious.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    hekalhekal Posts: 117member
    In modern times, OS9 is a joke of an OS. What makes OS X more vulnerable is that it's a Unix-based OS. There are exploits found for zlib, sudo, apache, openssh, etc... if you watch all the cert advisories and keep on top of things you will not see any problems. Also, close any service you don't need and you should be a-okay.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    OS9 never let you configure ports nor did it has any robust Remote Access Software included. This limited it's potential in the Networking arena but made it a safe OS for the non Techie. OSX has much more control and extra care will be required to make sure you don't leave holes in your OS that people can exploit. I doubt that you will see malicious hacking on a large scale similar to the Windows and Linux markets(knock on wood)
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