Maybe its a PR move for Microsoft more than anything. "Windows 8 has a built-in anti-virus and is more secure than ever!"
I feel like Windows gets targeted the most because there are just so many computers running it. If 80% of computers out there ran OSX I wonder if anyone would give a shit about the next vulnerability in Windows.
However, speaking about Windows, historically has been pretty insecure by default. Microsoft started giving a shit only recently, after the failure that was Windows Vista and the bad press associated with it.
Pff, if that annoying and totally ineffective UAC dialog is the best they could do in more than 5 years of development, I shudder to think what happens when increased security is not the goal of a release.
And btw, I don't know what you mean by the early XP era, but you're probably referring to a timespan of at least 20 years.
Yeah, I was being sloppy. There was and is malware on Windows for a long time but it only became a widely recognized "epidemic" in the late 90s - early 2000s.
but the real point is that it's just nonsensical to say that Microsoft has been more focused on security as a reaction to bad press of Vista - whether you like or hate Microsoft or Windows or Vista, there's just no interpretation of the timeline under which that makes any sense.
I feel like Windows gets targeted the most because there are just so many computers running it. If 80% of computers out there ran OSX I wonder if anyone would give a shit about the next vulnerability in Windows.