There has never been any Mac OS X malware in the wild that couldn't be successfully avoided by practicing safe computing, regardless of which version of Mac OS X is being run, or which patches have been installed. While that could change in the future, at this time there is no malware-related reason to upgrade from SL, unless the user just wants to.
I never said there was. However, there has been at least a couple of remotely exploitable vulnerability for OS X that required no user input and could be exploited by a machine simply being on a network (such as a public wifi hotspot) that the exploit was launched from:
http://www.juniper.net/security/auto/vulnerabilities/vuln24159.html
also
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/bonjour-apple-connect-to-this-mac-os-x-exploit/240
They were easily found with a 30 second web search, and are both remotely exploitable with no user input required. Yes they're both old. But, fact remains - apple is not infallible, and nor is anyone else.
I agree OS X has a better security record than Windows, but to claim it is somehow immune is just sticking your head in the sand.
It is only prudent to take this into account - rather than figuring it out on the spot if/when the problem occurs. Again, if it is a machine you don't make money with this is less critical.
I'm not saying you necessarily need to MIGRATE now, but you should be thinking about what you'll do when the time comes. I mean it could be something as simple as hardware failure and your new mac not supporting 10.6 that is the catalyst. Sooner or later, you will have to migrate.
Also, to take into account support for any new software or peripherals you may want to buy in the future, as Apple can and will drop support for 10.6 in the OS X development kit, like they already did for 10.5 some time ago.
No 10.6 support in the new SDK means that the availability of new software will diminish.
- Using two monitors, watching movie on one, working on the other. I heard that this is still a problem in ML/L (?)
You can do this in exactly the same way you can in SL,
which doesn't support full-screen (which if you're working on a laptop while NOT plugged into another screen, is awesome).
Just use the green maximize window button or size the window appropriately - as you would in SL.
I watch stuff on one screen while working in the other regularly on ML.
edit:
plenty more exploits requiring no unusual user action:
http://energy.gov/cio/articles/u-26...-arbitrary-code-and-local-users-gain-elevated
To spell it out clearly:
Apple OS X Lets Remote Users Execute Arbitrary Code and Local Users Gain Elevated Privileges
Means that combining a remote user exploit and a local privilege escalation exploit (of which both are listed), a remote user can execute arbitrary code as root on your box. Without you being prompted to do anything.
The fact that there isn't a significant amount of malware out there doing this in the wild isn't because the mac is magically secure. It's just dumb luck/not considered a worthy enough target right now.
Only visiting "trusted" web sites is only good if the trusted website doesn't get hacked.
If there was a zero day in vBulletin for example launched against macrumors.com (or one of its ad servers for that matter) to insert malicious code into either the HTML or an image , then any visitor of this site who was vulnerable (to the exploit inserted into the forum code by using the vbulletin exploit to break into the macrumors site) would get owned.
Yes, that is effort. However it is effort that has been put in, in the windows world previously (See code red).
But as the Windows world gets harder to break (7 has been pretty good, 8 should be better), expect the bad guys to start targeting softer (and even better, in the case of mac users - unsuspecting) targets. Like Snow Leopard.
