@Soriku: Because Macs are more expensive and most people are used to Microsoft's software like Windows and Office. Oh, and you can't play many games with OS X, which means you have to buy Windows separately and dual-boot if you want to play most games.

OT: What Soleron said. It's much more lucrative for virus makers to go after Windows PCs. Mac OS also has its fair share of vulnerabilities and security patches, so there's no fundamental reason for this other than market share.

The way I see it, nobody has a Mac (nobody being a general term for 'not that many people') so no one codes viruses for it. It can still get them though

Hackers do not fear Mac, but overlook it because more people world wide have PC's with the MS OS.

It would, if you run it with wine. :O I guess.

...yes.

Lack of marketshare and unix heritage.

All systems have virus's just some aren't worth it to target en mass as hackers would want to affect as many people as possible.

I've been running my mac for 3 years now and I haven't had a single issue with virus's or security. Although I admit I wouldn't have significant troubles with any system because I'm careful. However the lack of virus's is one of the best things about osx.

It's security through obscurity Mac OSX is as vunerable as windows but due to low marketshare there's lot less harmfull software targeted at it.

I got the feeling people wrote viruses for the same reason people graffitti, so that their name or lifes work was "remembered".

I would assume that's the reason why we don't see many MAC viruses, given how small their penetration is in the computer market, if you bothered to write a virus (not sure if that's the correct terminology) for it, very few people would know it (remember, they have to come across it as well). That's what i think as a non-tech guy (I don't know about the difficulties of making a mac virus etc).

That's probably the same reason consoles that go online don't get viruses, aside from the securities put in place by the consoles (All content would go through a screening process I assume), you're comparing potentially getting say 60 million (of which only 30 million go on regularly) with potentially getting countless PC's that go online everyday.

Or at least if I were one of these people, that'd be my reason for not doing it.

Mac stores advocate that you stay the hell away from Limewire as it will fill your computer with viruses... I don't doubt for a second that this is just so people will buy media off itunes instead.

Not true. If they had the same market share as windows based computers, hackers would put the same effort into making virus's for it and there would be an equal amount for both.