[jam8]

I don't think this has been talked about much on this board, and I was curious as to what the computer experts here think about the possiblity of severe security risks associated with having windows running on a Mac. I've got no knowledge about windows security (aside from the lack thereof), so as of the time of this posting, i'm assuming that having windows and osx running on the same box will present realistic and dangerous security issues to us Mac users, in terms of bugs somehow crossing over from one OS to the next through a linked architecture or something.

What are your thoughts?

[mduell]

Most Windows malware is content with just being spyware and adware and/or infecting other computers. There have been some particularly nasty viruses/trojans/worms that would corrupt your disk or worse (if I recall correctly Chernobyl would attempt to erase your BIOS).

The former will have no effect on OSX or your Mac hardware, they can only affect your Windows installation. The latter could corrupt/delete OSX and ruin your Mac.

[osiris]

You raised a good question. If/when Windows on Mac sports a shiny new virus, I imagine that whatever volume the system is on would be attacked as a whole volume, possibly destroying OS X.

Fer example, OS X with VPC on it: Erasing the volume also erases the VPC 'partitions'. I'm not sure if Windows can interpret or even see some Mac files, but if a worm zeros a hard drive... yikes

Hmmm, maybe Windows shouldn't be on a Mac in the first place. For your safety. (But I still can't wait to try, maybe just once.)

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by osiris

You raised a good question. If/when Windows on Mac sports a shiny new virus, I imagine that whatever volume the system is on would be attacked as a whole volume, possibly destroying OS X.

Fer example, OS X with VPC on it: Erasing the volume also erases the VPC 'partitions'. I'm not sure if Windows can interpret or even see some Mac files, but if a worm zeros a hard drive... yikes

Hmmm, maybe Windows shouldn't be on a Mac in the first place. For your safety. (But I still can't wait to try, maybe just once.)

Not likely, because Virtual PC uses a virtual hard drive for the Windows installation. So malware could only erase the virtual hard drive. Now, if you share a folder on the Mac side with the virtual PC, it appears as a network drive to Windows. Unless you share your whole hard drive (which would be exceedingly stupid and just ASKING for a virus to affect you), then only that shared folder would be at risk.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by Person Man

Not likely, because Virtual PC uses a virtual hard drive for the Windows installation. So malware could only erase the virtual hard drive. Now, if you share a folder on the Mac side with the virtual PC, it appears as a network drive to Windows. Unless you share your whole hard drive (which would be exceedingly stupid and just ASKING for a virus to affect you), then only that shared folder would be at risk.

forgive me, maybe I didn't word it right...
Erasing OS X will erase a VPC partition, but a virus on VPC would not effect the OS X install.
But now with the new Macs, if Windows could be installed (not VPC) onto the same volume as OS X, with both running natively, then a virus attacking Windows could potentially erase the volume (and OS X with it)

Does this make more sense?