In general, the Mac operating system has seen far fewer bugs than its Windows counterpart. But some say a recent vulnerability demonstrates that the notoriously tight-lipped company must communicate more openly on security issues and move more quickly when it comes to plugging holes.

"I think there's room for improvement with their response speed on problems with their own code," said Chris Adams, a Mac user and system administrator for San Diego's Salk Institute for Biological Studies, a research center that's played a part in training five Nobel Prize-winning scientists. "The general pattern is complete silence for months and then a terse announcement when the update is released."

Adams said Apple has done a pretty good job of updating the operating system to fill holes found in various Unix components. But what is needed, Adams and others contend, is more dialogue about what the company is doing with regard to security.

By Ina Fried at ZDNet.

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