According to the promotional material for Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, its customers' No1 concern is security. Reportedly, the reason Macs are more secure is that only a small percentage of the world uses the platform and since hackers or identity thieves want to reach as many victims as possible, they focus their malicious intent on Windows PCs.
In the meantime, there are some Mac vulnerabilities you can watch out for. For example, if someone has physical access to your computer, they can install software that allows them to take it over and control it remotely, just as one can a PC. Granted, the Mac is not as susceptible as a Windows machine but determined hackers are very resourceful. This is the most dangerous type of spyware and allows the bad guy to know your schedule, read your e-mail, print out your income-tax forms or do anything else you can do on your computer. It also allows the hacker to install a keystroke recorder to record all of your passwords and e-mail that data when you aren't looking.
Some data should be protected from people who can obtain direct access to your computer. The trick here is to encrypt such data using a secure database designed for this purpose. This is especially important if you do your backups to an online server. Anything sent over the internet can be intercepted and read if it is not encrypted.