Today is the two-year anniversary of the start of this blog. Happy Blog-iversary to us! Our first blog entry, made soon after the introduction of Intel-based Macs at Macworld Expo 2006, was entitled “Intel Macs and Internet security.” It asked the still very relevant questions “Does this mean the new Macs will now be subject to all the security problems that Windows machines have?” and “Does this mean the new Intel Macs will be less secure than the PowerPC Macs were?”

Our answers of “No” to the first question, and “most likely” to the second one have been proven quite correct so far. The Mac clearly remains much more secure than Windows, with few ongoing serious security problems. In fact, the Mac’s excellent security is usually quoted as one of the main reasons for its resurgence over the past two years. The malware score remains around 236,000 to 7, with the Mac well entrenched on the “losing” side.

At least some of those “7” pieces of real Mac malware, however, have come to exist due in part to the Mac’s use of Intel processors. As we predicted, those processors have allowed a few hackers (usually calling themselves “researchers”) to leverage the Intel-hacking expertise they developed hacking Windows in creating their Mac malware. For instance, the CanSecWest hack was a good (or bad) example of this leverage.

Alas, with the Mac’s increasing popularity and media attention, and with the allure of other popular Apple devices, in particular the iPhone, it’s pretty likely that we’ll see more such Mac malware over the next two years than we have over the past two. And some of these pieces of malware may even be more than simply proofs-of-concept, so we do need to continue to be concerned and vigilant. However, on our four-year blog-iversary, we’re still guessing the score is going to be something like 736,000 to 87. Here’s hoping anyway!