The difference between, worms, trojans, viruses and malware is technical. The outcome is the same. Until recently, Apple's OSX system has been arguably less prone to suffer hacker attacks. Hacking is becoming an organized crime business, so criminals have focused their resources where they can get the most gain - the larger community of Windows machines.
As Apple OSX and Windows mature the two systems are enjoying a higher degree of interoperability with common file formats. Acrobat files, java script, MS Word documents, QuickTime and other media open on both types of systems.
It is the application programs that give new ground for hackers. In fact, there was a fairly high profile cross platform worm that exploited a flaw in MySpace's web architecture combinmed with a java script problem in QuickTime:
http://www.us-cert.gov/current/archive/2006/12/20/archive.html#poapqktmvl
As the applications become richer in features they will offer more ways hackers can deploy cross platform exploits that can infect any type of system.
This points to the biggest factor in keeping your computer un-hacked... namely your own behavior. If you are careless, click anything and everything, install programs without checking their origin and hang out on warez web sites, you'll probably wind up getting hackecked no matter what type of system you're using.
Bill
Message was edited by: impulse_telecom
