As much as I love Apple products like the iPhone or iPod, I’ve always been a PC girl. One thing that I hear from Mac users is that they are not as susceptible to viruses. This may well be true but last month it was discovered that over 600,000 Mac computers have been infected with the Flashback malware. Surely to Apple and the ever-growing Mac community this has come as a surprise and disappointment.

Apple’s Mac operating system has largely gone unaffected by the malicious programs that have plagued PC’s. Apple is now asking for help from computer security firm Kaspersky to strengthen the OS’s security, looks like Apple is finally realizing their operating system is much more vulnerable than they first thought.. Kapersky’s chief technology officer Nikolai Grebennikov has stated that the Mac OS platform is “really vulnerable,” and that Apple up until recently failed to take the security issue seriously.

Apple was slow in responding to a known security issue with Java in which Flashback exploited. Oracle closed the vulnerability in Java but Apple blocked Oracle from updating Java on Mac OS. Apple performs all updates themselves and just released the patch a few weeks ago; two or three months later than Oracle’s fix. Grebennikov has also stated that the discovery of the malware by the security community was a huge sign that Apple’s security model is flawed. He also believes that in the next 12 months he wouldn’t be surprised if  Apple’s mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad were also infected by malware as well. “Our experience tells us that in the near future, perhaps in a year or so, we will see the first malware targeting  iOS,” said Grebennikov.

Related articles

• Apple asks for Mac OS security help as Kaspersky CTO describes the platform as ‘really vulnerable’(digitaltrends.com)

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