Apple acknowledges Mac Defender malware, promises update

Malware is so rare on the Mac that Apple set up an entire web page to deal with the <i>one</i> trojan currently known to be impacting Mac users.<p>Macs aren't more secure than Windows machines, but they're still undeniably safer (at least for normal people).

<a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650" rel="nofollow">http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650</a>

As an IT professional, I’m honestly not sure how to feel about this.<p>On the one hand, it’s great that all the variants of MacDefender currently out there will be neutralized.<p>On the other hand, we’re surely going to see new flavors that go undetected by the update. Apple is getting into the anti-virus game, and potentially starting an arms race. But, what else could Apple do in this situation?

Wow, check out the removal steps in the kb article. Quit the app using Activity Monitor then delete from /Applications. Clearly we have a long way to go...

An interesting question is whether this is merely a blip or part of a trend. Apple's user base must be an enormously tempting target for malware creators.

It is inevitable that as mac becomes more popular, we'll see more viruses and malware.

heh, given that Apple was previously directing staffers not to acknowledge it, when I read this headline all I could think of was Jobs telling a press conference "OSX now has malware. This is a new, must-have feature that will revolutionise the industry!"...