Press Hype about Gartner’s “Mac Hype”

Gartner came out the other day to tell us all that any security concerns associated with running Windows on the Intel Mac is crap. According to the analysis:

All users should ignore any hype about the possibility of exposing the Mac OS to more viruses or worms. The Mac software will be located on another partition within a different file system; thus, running Windows on a Mac will not expose the Mac software to more “malware.”

Um… Wait a second… Didn’t Gartner just tell us two weeks ago A) that spyware for the Mac was a veritable certainty and B) that it was possible to create a Mac-Windows hybrid worm? I mean doesn’t the statement “it might be possible to create a hybrid worm that attacks both the Mac and Microsoft Windows operating systems” seem pretty unambiguous to you? Now the reverse is true? Alright, alright, I won’t be a nudnick since these statements came from two different sides of the Gartner house…

But mixed messages aside – their first statement, while technically true, is sufficiently limited in scope and vague to be misinterpreted by the press – and “boy howdy” how it has been. Headlines like, “Boot Camp Will Not Expose Macs To Security Risks, Says Gartner”, or “XP won’t expose Macs to viruses, says Gartner: Boot Camp security risk is just hype