Comment by varispeed

That analogy misses the asymmetry in claims and power.

Microsoft does not sell Windows as a sealed, uncompromisable appliance. It assumes a hostile environment, acknowledges malware exists, and provides users and third parties with inspection, detection, and remediation tools. Compromise is part of the model.

Apple’s model is the opposite. iOS is explicitly marketed as secure because it forbids inspection, sideloading, and user control. The promise is not “we reduce risk”, it’s “this class of risk is structurally eliminated”. That makes omissions meaningful.

So when a document titled Apple Platform Security avoids acknowledging Pegasus-class attacks at all, it isn’t comparable to Microsoft not listing every Windows virus. These are not hypothetical threats. They are documented, deployed, and explicitly designed to bypass the very mechanisms Apple presents as definitive.

If Apple believes this class of attack is no longer viable, that’s worth stating. If it remains viable, that also matters, because users have no independent way to assess compromise. A vague notification that Apple “suspects” something, with no tooling or verification path, is not equivalent to a transparent security model.

The issue is not that Apple failed to enumerate exploits. It’s that the platform’s credibility rests on an absolute security narrative, while quietly excluding the one threat model that contradicts it. In other words Apple's model is good old security by obscurity.