MS is targeted by hackers because its used by leaps and bounds by more people than any other, why target apple a handful own them and use them
Actually, if MS had been targeted by real hackers instead of script kiddies and other less knowledgeable persons, it would not exist today. Linux is actually the most hacked OS, however, most or at least enough of those probing and hacking for security breaches publish the vulnerbility and many times fixes, which in turn are quickly distributed to users. Usually in less than a few days. However, there are vulnerbilities in Windows, through legacy compatibility, that have existed since Windows 95. Microsoft does not have a good record of actually fixing vulnerbilities in it's code, instead they try to control the attack vector used to exploit the vulnerbility. Many viruses repeat the same attacks over and over again against the same existing vulnerbility but use different vectors of attack. AV software is not able to actually fix an vulnerabilites either, instead, they profile the vector of attack and block that vector.
There are three primary reasons that Linux is not redily susceptible to viruses.
The first being very strict control between user level and root level, for a virus to be effective, it has to infect system files which in Linux means breaking root.
The second is the fact that very few implementations of Linux are the same. There are many ways to achieve the same thing and still be compatible. Further, what code is used by a particular machine is based upon the hardware at the time the Kernel was compiled and what version of Linux being compiled. Different users, using the exact same version of a Linux OS can have huge differences in code implementation and use because of variances in hardware.
The third being how fast any vulnerbility found is fixed.
While it is theoretically possible to write a virus for Linux, it would be very limited in it's affect because of these three factors.
Linux does not enjoy much success in the desktop market, however they are very sucessfull in the corporate server market. Very few implentations of Linux focus upon Desktop use. Linux is also free software, it is illegal to charge for a linux distribution, however, it is not illegal to charge for service support and only offer certain features to those who pay a service contract. Since you cannot charge for Linux, there is not money to pay for advertising. This coupled with MSs marketing stratagies to keep competing software out of retailers severly hurt the home PC implementation of Linux. Redhat and other comercial Linux providers either do not support desktop implementation or target their desktop versions for corporate use, not home. Despite these challenges, Linux use continues to grow annually.
Apple now suffers from many ailments that previously only belonged to MS. What is really interesting about this phenomenon in the Apple market is that all of it has only been since Apple lost the GUI lawsuit to MS. While there are not overt links between the two, certain things are clear. Apple went away from it's previous hardware vendors after the lawsuit. MS gets royalties off of any hardware capable of running MS products. Since Apple switched to Intel based processors, the same as Windows machines, MS now gets royalties off of the processor sales. Apple OS X was altered, both to accomendate the lawsuit and to implement it on Intel processors. Vulnerabilities in Apple have primarily only surfaced since those changes. Yes, OS X is partially based upon Linux/Unix archetectures. However, since Apple keeps strick control of hardware in its systems and the fact that is a single user/home desktop based system, there may not be the strict divisions between Root and User and there are not the variances in implementations found in Linux. Many of the problems we now see from Apple are mysterously very MSish, such as slow updates, failure to fix vulnerabilities, etc.
