Mountain Lion and ransomware

[e93to]

I was wondering if Macs with ML are easier to be held at ransom than 10.10 or 10.11 because, well, it's an older system. I don't know much about computer security, but recent talks about ransomware made me think about updating to 10.11... From what I know, the hackers exploited Find My Mac feature to lock the affected computers. I have this turned off on my iMac, and this feature is not even available on my MBP with 10.6.8! But I guess this is not the only way to remotely lock a computer - maybe malicious codes can modify admin account with a different password...

Would El Cap provide better security against ransomware than ML?

 

[Weaselboy]

I don't know specifically about ransomware, but I do know there have been security patches rolled out in El Capitan that have not been applied to older OS version like Mountain Lion. So yes, I think if security is your concern, it is better to be in El Capitan.

That said, even on Mountain Lion, for ransomware to get installed you would still need to enter your login (admin) password to allow the ransomware to install. Unless of course it gets installed as part of some app your installed intentionally. But that would still be an issue even with El Capitan.

Also, El Capitan has something called "system integrity protection" (SIP) that prevents any application from modifying certain system folders and application, so that helps with security.