system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is stopping naughty people creating a virus to hack Apple stuff?

So, I know about the whole thing that Macs don't get viruses, or at least ones for PCs don't affect them. But given that most Mac users are completely tied to Apple, a virus would cause vast amounts of damage and, after all, that's what most viruses do.

Is the reason no one has really done this on a large scale because they are too hard to crack?

Edit: Thanks for the explanation folks, I had never really thought about the market share thing, I had just thought about the fact that Apple users tend to be more affluent and therefore would be better hacking victims.

Edit 2: thanks for all the answers, I thought I had already marked it as explained, but I hadn't saved it. Sorry!
gpt
Nope. And in fact I'd wager that *many* viruses written for Apple based OS's was done entirely because they tried to make, "we don't get viruses!" an advertising pitch.


There's no such thing as a completely impenetrable OS. Period. The reason why Apple computers, as a whole, get fewer is because they occupy a comparatively small portion of the market. Back when Vista hit and everyone *hated* it, that *bad* Microsoft OS still held a market share *larger* than Apple's entirety. 


Furthermore, most *valuable* systems run on non-Apple OS's. Bank software, government software, corporate servers, you name it. If it isn't running Windows, its running a distribution of Linux. Not only are Windows based OS's more common, I'd wager that the staggering majority of high-value targets someone would kill to get access to run Windows. Or at least *not* an Apple OS.