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Pentium
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A little snippet in this weeks mag said that of the 230,000 viruses/malware only 7 infected Mac's.
They said it was probably down to the large market share of windows but I'm not so sure.
I think it is the other way around and it's the small number of Macs for two reasons.
1) There must be a certain threshold at which there are enough computers to spread an infection, i.e. if your Mac is only in contact with PC's the virus wouldn't spread.
2) I expect that PC virsus scanners also detect Mac viruses (i.e. files with incorrect sizes/attributes etc) which means that the vast majority of Mac viruses should be caught by a PC (which is probably immune to the infection) long before they ever reach a Mac.
My [simple] conclusion is that Macs are largely immune to viruses because there are so many PCs and not because Macs are better.
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Pentium
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that would make sense - like Linux mail servers removing windows viruses windows does it for the mac 
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286
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I agree, but I'd put a slightly different twist on your answer.
Modern malware/virii fall into two camps.
a) Script kiddies looking to get a 'reputation'
b) Criminals - sometimes riding on the backs of a)
In both cases it comes down to time/money. The initial script writers can't target every platform so they go for those which are both easiest and give them the biggest return on their time. Criminal businesses have a finite resource of trusted employees, and they pay them to write software which will infect the greatest number of pcs and give them a controlling number of bots.
The recent (unsuccessful?) attempt to infect the Redhat Linux code update servers is interesting in that it ratcheted up the criminal game a notch. Had they been successful in distributing infected updates to the world's Redhat servers then they could indubitably have targeted any OS they felt like. If Linux powered netbooks become extremely popular then this could be the form of attack to cause biggest problems. I for one never minutely examine a 'recommended' Ubuntu update for malware, even when source code is available. (I'm probably making the wrong assumption that Microsoft updates will be safe!)
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Pentium
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i always thought that the Mac Operating system shared some fundamental principles, with Unix and Free BSD, which are themselves preventative of viruses working on the operating system.
Namely only a password protected administrator (in Linux its Root), has the required system permissions to install and allow an executable file to run.
That is why you could literally have a machine running a Mac, FreeBSD, or Linux operating system completely full of (windows) viruses, but the viruses would be ineffective on the host machine as they would have no permissions to run. They would be treated as data files only.
Whereas the default action that windows takes for any user of the system is to try and run the file as a program, before offering an open with option. Every user of the windows operating system has more rights to do damage to the system, than the rights given by default to users of the other operating systems.
So it is not necessarily down to the number of machines after all Macs are used by some key businesses and are less of a home use machine than the humble PC, so they would therefore be a potentially more lucrative target for virus writers.
It also explains the reason for the method of attack used on Redhat, as update files require administrator rights to be active in order to install.
Mad Malc
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Pentium
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From what I have gathered, I think Malc might be partially right, as are you, Spedders 
Macs are not as common, and they do share fundamentals with Unix et al, but there's something else in my opinion.
The operating system itself. MacOS is a very slow moving thing. We've been on OS X for what, 8 years now? Apple seem to be very good at a secure operating system, and just bringing out slightly updated versions every few years, and then going up one. This "slowness" allows Apple to refine the coding very well, and you have to remember that in 99% of cases, the hardware is limited to a finite amount of choices (with exception to third party peripherals). Because they're continually working with the same hardware (and often their own software), they can easily find more vulnerabilities. I'm not saying there aren't any, as the 7 viruses show, but the whole process is so much more refined and kept together.
Of course, I could be completely wrong here.
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Pentium
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malc says that a large proportion of Macs are in business use which could be another reason why viruses are less common - there may be more incentive for the virus writers but they are less likely to come into contact with viruses while at work.
Following from that, Edp brought up that financially the higher market share of the PC makes it more of a target but conversely if a Mac were to be infected, I think the user would be more likey to have their guard down whcih could give the virus writers a higher return per infected machine.
It is really hard to tell because while Linux is about as secure as they come, the average user of Linux is far more likely to recognise a virus than the average PC user. After all, most Windows viruses will probably bring up the option "This may harm your computer, are you sure" and yet people still say yes. If those people were using Linux, they'd still give the program permission.
I'm not sure how Linux works but I expect that once a maliscious program has been given permission then it can let all it's friends in too, just like Windows.
gaming: E4400@2.66GHz / P5K-E / 2x1GB PC8000@533MHz / 2x80GB D'Max 9-RAID0 + 320GB / 8800GTS 512MB / ViewSonic VX2835wm
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also: P3 for the mrs and a linux box and probably enough bits to build another one
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386
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MartenReed (31/08/2008)
FreeBSD seem to be very good at a secure operating system,
Corrected
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Pentium
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