Take THAT again Mr Mac Cool Guy

Yesterday, a MacBook was hacked before a Sony Vaio with Windows Vista and a Fujitsu U810 running Linux.

Today? Black Hat says Apple is slower than Microslob at patching exposed security issues:

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology looked at how many times over the past six years the two vendors were able to have a patch available on the day a vulnerability became publicly known, which they call the 0-day patch rate.

They analyzed 658 vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple. They looked at only high- and medium-risk bugs, according to the classification used by the National Vulnerability Database, said Stefan Frei, one of the researchers involved in the study.

What they found is that, contrary to popular belief that Apple makes more secure products, Apple lags behind in patching.

Researchers say Apple doesn’t have as good a relationship with the computer security industry, and that’s a large part of why it’s behind.

The study proved to be such a glowing affirmation of Microsoft’s increased focus on security in the past few years that it prompted … Andrew Cushman, director of Microsoft’s Security and Research … to ask Frei, “Did Microsoft fund this research?”

Nope, it’s independent research, he said, that just happens to show Microslob is far ahead of Apple on this issue.

And, why is that?

Well, if you read between the lines of the story, it’s clearly due to Apple arrogance.

At the same time, Microsoft desperately needs to build some marketing and PR, based on these findings and many other things. In the past four years, its branding reputation has slipped dramatically.

In fact, and ironically, the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials are cited by analysts as part of the reason for that decline. The irony value is because the Cool Mac Guy claims he doesn’t get viruses. Yes, hacking is not the same as viruses, nonetheless, they’re in the same general realm of computer security issues.

I wonder if Microslob can hire the two actors for their own commercials, if Mac doesn’t have them locked up. The PC Guy, John Hodgman, would be alone on screen, then start checking his watch. Then, he would go looking for the Mac Guy, Justin Long, only to find him wailing over a punked, hacked computer.

Long won’t be in new Mac ads because he struck people as a “smug little twit,” per Seth Stevenson, ad critic for Slate, who said Long is:

“Just the sort of unshaven, hoodie-wearing, hands-in-pockets hipster we’ve always imagined when picturing a Mac enthusiast.... It’s like Apple is parodying its own image while also cementing it.”

And, it looks like the hacking results will further cement Apple’s image.