According to CBC News, Apple has for the first time displaced Microsoft in terms of market cap. This makes Apple the second largest of all U.S. companies, second only to Exxon Mobil.

The CBC article cites an often-seen figure that "Apple only holds 10 per cent of the global computer market". But pre-existing hardware does not a market make. What counts is what people are buying when they're ready to get a new computer. According to NPD, Apple nabs 91% of the market for premium ($1000+) computer sales.

Security concerns may be one reason driving the exodus from PCs to Macs. While the Mac OS is not invulnerable to malware, there are a few serious distinguishing features that  make it less prone. For example, under Mac OS X, applications do not interact with files from other applications. Conversely, Windows applications have a great deal of interaction and share a common registry. On a Mac, root is disabled by default, admin is a separate account and users run, by default, as users. This alone makes Mac OS X much less susceptible to the silent drive-by malware infections that plague Windows users.

On the other hand, many of the malware woes on a Windows computer could be reduced substantially by upgrading to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8. Vista, Windows 7, and IE8 all take advantage of DEP and ASLR by default, making it more difficult for attackers to exploit the OS or browser directly.

Unfortunately, the high degree of program interaction under Windows negates this protection to a fair degree - vulnerable third-party applications like Adobe Reader, Acrobat, and Flash are now widely used as the exploit vector on Windows computers. As a result, malicious PDF files harboring Adobe Reader/Acrobat exploits were the most common exploit of 2009 (and continuing through 2010). Thus even if you do upgrade to Windows 7 and IE8, you should still employ a full arsenal of security software and neuter Adobe's PDF handling.

Apple Takes Bite Out of Microsoft originally appeared on About.com Antivirus Software on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 13:40:28.

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RFID was developed in World War II, helping radar operators distinguish friendly aircraft from enemy. By the 1980s it had evolved into wireless tracking and access applications and today provides omnidirectional electronic storage technology on chips that can read, write, store, and transmit data in freely available international frequency bands. In short, RFID chips are mini-computers that can wirelessly communicate.

In a futuristic bit of research, Dr. Mark Gasson, Senior Research Fellow at Reading University's Cybernetic Intelligence Research Group, has demonstrated the futuristic potential threat of human-implanted devices by implanting a virus-infected RFID chip below the base of his thumb. (Functionality of the chip provides him secure access to the building and his cellphone). Gasson then uploaded data from the chip to the server, which transferred over the virus.

Views differ as to the importance or intent of Dr. Gasson's research. For both viewpoints, see Man Infects Himself with Computer Virus, and Captain Cyborg Sidekick Implants Virus-Infected Chip.

At the very least, Dr. Gasson's research puts to rest the old question of whether RFID viruses are real or imagined.

Doctor Demos Virus-Infected Implant originally appeared on About.com Antivirus Software on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 12:30:12.

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