Malware Out to Get Macs, Says Report
The amount of malware targeting Apple's OS X operating system is about to get worse, according to McAfee's Avert Labs' "Is Max OX X the Next Windows?" The analysis found that between 1987 and 2006 there were only 76 Apple viruses, compared to 100,000 targeted at Windows during the same period. The U.S. National Vulnerability Database reports that the number of vulnerability complaints they received related to OS X increased from 45 in 2003 to 143 in 2005, a 228 percent increase. "For more than 26 years, Apple has avoided the security spotlight," says the report. "This good fortune is at least partly due to its significantly smaller share of the personal computer market." McAfee's Sal Viveros says Apple's past statistics on virus rates are not relevant, since the biggest threat was from malware aimed at specific software vulnerabilities. Apple's OS X was not supposed to have holes, but experts say many exploits were aimed at opening holes in its operating system. Now the threat is no longer the number of threats, but the severity and chance of it attacking an unprotected user.
© Copyright 2006 INFORMATION, INC.
Print This Article
E-mail This Article
