It was patch week from Microsoft this week. This month brought 9 or 10 security updates depending on your version of Windows. I find it really funny how differently Microsoft and Apple release their security patches.

Microsoft

We get a monthly release of all the security updates. They are packaged individually, which is a good thing since it gives the administrator the ability to not have to apply all of them. They generally have scary sounding names and cryptic looking descriptions. Security Patch for WonderBall.dll (KB123456) for example. And it will usually include words like malicious and takeover. Scary stuff! And wow, there sure are a lot of them. The average person would conclude that this software is horrible.

Apple

MacOS X is a totally different experience. Today, while updating my Windows boxes, I also got to update my Mac. Apple takes a different approach. I just got this nice dialog saying MacOS X 10.3.8 was available and did I want to upgrade my software. The funny thing is there was no mention of security, no words like malicious code. In fact it was completely opaque. If you look into the details though there are dozens of security updates. The whole thing is really a security patch to deal with bugs.

I’m not trying to say that Microsoft doesn’t have security problems. They do. But people that say the MacOS X is so extremely secure need to check reality. And I would suggest Microsoft change their wording but if they did they would be skewered for hiding security problems.