Linux has a big ransomware problem and with inexperienced users running it, it can be easy to attack.
See: https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/new-b0r0nt0k-r...
and
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/b0r0nt0k-rans...
And Mac is certainly not immune:
https://www.cultofmac.com/416299/stealthy-malware-will-hold-...
Malware targets Windows because that's where the users are. If the majority of people swapped to e.g. Mac or whatever else, then you'd see the majority of malware start to target Mac. You even see this as smaller players increase marketshare. E.g. in 2015 Macs ran into more malware than in the 5 previous years combined. [1] There was no major discovery or anything happening. The only thing that happened was that Macs gained a decent clip of marketshare, and so became more worthwhile to target.
[1] - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2459197-bit9-carbon-...
Even if this is true, it doesn't change the calculus for the individual company. If they switched to something else while everyone else is still on Windows, now they're using something with less malware targeting it.
If everybody did that then maybe more malware would target the other thing, but that only matters if they mostly actually do and that actually causes there to be more malware than there is on Windows.
(cost of malware) * (risk of malware) < (cost of macbooks)
I'm moving all my people to macs from windows because the amount of lost work on windows and the amount of IT help needed is much greater for windows.
Also, the anti-virus solutions on windows, which are much more needed there[1], have gotten really terrible recently. AVG was basically making the machines useless.
[1] The standard I use for new mac users is they are not administrators, like everyone is on Windows. That prompt on windows to ask to install something that all users get numb to and say "yes"? Doesn't exist for my mac users, since they aren't admins. That alone helps in so many ways.
I worked in bank for a while without admin. In many years, the only tool that needed admin rights to run was the Visual Studio C++ Debugger.
How do users lose work on Windows? Just by installing garbage all over the place?
The obvious answer is the tools fit their needs best. It's not like OSX is some big secret.
Although losing data on a user machine should of course never be crippling to a company in the first place. Make sure everything is committed to a central location, as well as backed up at regular times.
* Industry norm - In some cases, certain operating systems become a norm. Requesting someone to implement X solutions to a different operating system can cost more, have unexpected risks, etc.
* Adaptability - It is easier to hire someone to do a job in X operating system/tool if that person has a similar system at home or used it in a previous company.
* False sense of security - Transitioning to based on your rationale can mean that the business and its users will feel overconfident of their security. This can lead to increased careless mistakes.
What's the basis for your assertion?
At the level of systems we're discussing, a Windows installation would be operated by experienced Windows administrator. Thus the appropriate comparison group for Linux would be something like a university-run supercomputing cluster. We don't often hear of these being taken over for ransom.
I don't have any basis, just what I expect. Windows has been fuzzed and reverse engineered to the moon and back. Desktop Linux? I doubt it.
I'd agree that yes, distros meant for desktop usage have less secure defaults, but that's not necessarily to say they're "less secure" if you understand how you're using them.
I trust nginx, sshd, postgres, postfix, etc. much more than I trust the gnome file manager, evince, dbus, pulse.
For every exploit that nginx currently has, there probably are a thousand lurking in gnome's file roller.
Unless your entirely hypothetical scenario involves privilege escalation vulnerabilities, which I'll admit aren't unheard of in Linux but are fairly rare and usually patched within hours when they are discovered.
There is a second question as to whether Windows is still inherently more susceptible to these kinds of attacks (I would guess the answer is yes), but that's kind of irrelevant. The threat exists, why wouldn't you just use Macs or Chromebooks or whatever else? Basically _anything_ other than Windows? Even in the case where you have Windows-only business critical software, just run it in a VM on something else.