Post By Martin 1 Comment
December 2007 03

Apple users need to be secure too

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single9735

Apple computer users, so long accustomed to lording it over their PC rivals, may now have cause to regret feeling so smug.

“When you get a Mac, only your enthusiasm is contagious,” trumpets the Apple website, touting the security features of the Mac and its lack of viruses compared to the PC.

But the discovery last month of a Mac-compatible Trojan horse program is cause for concern.

There have been attempts before to write viruses for Apple’s operating system, but this appears to have been the first piece of malware to have been written by professional criminals. In this, it echoes a trend that has been happening for some time on the PC.

Some observers believe this could be the start of more targeted attacks against the Mac, similar to those experienced by Windows users.

This will continue to be a topic of debate, amongst the analysts. Do we need to secure the Apple platform? Absolutely, but for the time being the risk remains leaning towards the Windows platform, but as more users come online to the Mac platform, ensuring that you’ve got the right patches, that the virus and (or) firewall software is turned on will become an issue. Microsoft remains above the radar due to its userbase, as the Apple platform comes more popular, it might too.

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One Comment

  1. Chuck says:
    December 4, 2007 at 1:16 am

    Leaning? 140K viruses for Windows vs. maybe four proof-of-concept on the Mac? I agree OS X needs to STAY secure, but there is no comparison with Windows. Those who think because the Mac market share is growing and in turn that viruses will grow along with it are uninformed or fooling themselves. This isn’t an argument, it’s the facts when comparing how the foundations of the OSes were built. It has been beaten to death. Windows was never meant to work on the Internet and with email. We can debate it all day. But where are all the viruses, malware, spyware and trojans for the Mac? Or Linux? Or Unix OSes?

    I manage 55 Macs where I work. None of them run any AV software. Why waste money and processor cycles? Better yet, stay off the porn sites and pay attention to the emails with links, and 99.999% of these trojans will never land on a Mac.

    I’m not unrealistic. We sit behind a firewall on a managed network. But until there is a real virus in the wild taking down hundreds of connected Macs, this is all just frivolous talk.

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