I often come across people that feel they are not at risk for viruses and malware because they are on a Mac. Many small mac centric firms even run workstations with real Internet IP adresses and no firewall, OUCH! I blame Apple and their marketing for creating this dangerously superior attitude, but things are changing. Over the past couple of months Apple has been quietly patching systems over its automated system update process, twenty different vulnerabilities in March and an additional fifteen recently.
Now adding fuel to the flame, in a not entirely altruistic fashion, virus protection provider McAfee has released a study that points out that over the last two years “the annual rate of vulnerability discovery on Apple’s Mac OS platform has increased by 228 percent” Now, when you start from a base of near zero where nobody is interested in writing a virus to attack you, to now where we are seeing people begin to probe OSX as the platform increases it’s popularity, 228% may be a meaningless statistic.
The bottom line is not to be complacent about security and follow best practices including a firewall, network address translation, patching operating systems consistently, securing wireless access and running virus/spyware/malware detection software.
