“Is Mac under a virus attack? No. But there’s some bad news rising on the Apple malware front,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
Let’s see if we can handle this one as a Q&A.
Q: Is there a Mac OS X virus loose on the Internet? Technically, no. As far as I know, no Mac OS X virus has ever been detected in the wild. But there are other kinds of Mac malware out there that you should know about.
Q: Like what? The immediate concern, ironically, is a bogus antivirus program called “MAC Defender” that targets Mac OS X users running Safari.
Q: So are Macs now as dangerous as Windows PCs? Not by a long shot. Last fall, the computer security team at Sophos Labs reported that they were seeing one or two attacks on Macs each week, compared with tens of thousands per day against Windows PCs.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Our usual oft-repeated reminder for Mac users and anyone who’s trying to use any other platform: Do not download and authorize the installation of applications (Trojans) from untrusted sources. No OS can protect users from themselves (or we wouldn’t be able to install any software). Those who grant attackers access to their Macs, should not be surprised to find their Macs are compromised.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ellis D.” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Intego: MACDefender rogue anti-malware program attacks Macs via SEO poisoning – May 2, 2011