I guess a lot of people have moved to platforms which are essentially virus-proof, like the iPad. I have several members of my family who used windows computers before, now they use iPads exclusively for all their work and pleasure. Previously any of them would open anything that they got in an email, and I guess they still do - it's just that with some devices, it's not an issue. A zipped up virus won't do any harm on an iPad, and probably most Android devices are secure from that too.

So while I think that windows devices are as easy to infiltrate as ever, a lot of people have simply stopped using them, and replaced them with - coincidentally, not intentionally - more secure platforms.

Pretty much this, security isn't improving, its just those infected zip & doc files usually aren't targeted at Android or iOS.

From trivial to apply app and OS updates to code signing and disabled sideloading, the mobile platforms (either one) make it really much harder to fall prey than on desktop OSes, by design. Malware authors have to hit a homerun on 0-days to even begin to get a foothold on the mobile OSes† these days.

† on properly updated devices such as the Apple ones as well as Nexus+Pixel. Probably this is where some form of vertical integration starts to really matter in practice.

Maybe criminals are more subtle now. For example most people who own devices that are part of the Mirai botnet are not aware of it.

I think you're right. Unless you're running crypto malware there's hardly any reason to let your victim know you've infected them. In fact it's best if they never notice anything is amiss.

It's a common pattern with a lot of "awareness" and media problems. There's a big problem with something, people start noticing it and "raising awareness" of it and publishing articles, books, etc on it. Now several things happen at the same time - people who are responsible for the systems that have the problem start addressing it and it gradually starts getting better in response to the publicity and complaints, but at the same time, the community of people finding and drawing attention to the class of problems gets bigger and develops more infrastructure and institutional culture. Groups get created and funded, people start full-time careers with those groups, regular magazines and websites get published and develop their own staffs, etc.

Usually, the underlying issue is complex enough that it takes years or decades to make the problem like 95% better. But the community around the issue has become entrenched, and won't go away just because the problem is basically solved. There's plenty of excuses at hand to justify the continued existence of the group - the problem is never 100% gone, so there's always something new to address, and they can always say that we have to be on guard for the problem coming back. But the effect is the same - the noise gets louder as the signal gets weaker.

If you're paying attention, you can see this pattern play out for all sorts of things.

In this case, we have both made the computers and browsers a lot more secure, and a lot of consumer-level computing activity has, for a bunch of reasons of which security is certainly one, moved to drastically more locked-down devices. Good luck building a botnet of iPads and Android phones. Many of the hacks that get the most publicity are super-complex one-offs that are in theory highly dangerous, but in practice are so valuable that they would only ever be used by state-level actors against handpicked national security targets, because you have to spend millions to find them, and they will become worthless about a week after the appropriate companies become aware of them.

Security on desktop OSes is still much worse, with even sandboxing being fairly rare.

Oh come on. The virus situation on Windows XP was appalling. The system was wide open. It's the primary reason I mainly switched to the Mac in 2006. Sane security was the one truly good thing that's come out of the post-XP era of MS operating systems.

Desktop OSes still run every app as the user, which gives them access to everything useful by default. Mobile OSes differ in this respect since they sandbox by default.