Apple Acknowledges MacDefender

Trailrunner7 writes with an article in threatpost "Apple is planning to release an update specifically designed to protect users against the MacDefender malware that has been circulating for the last couple of weeks. The update for Mac OS X will automatically find and remove the malware on an infected machine and also will warn users if another infection attempt is detected.

Comments

No.

[rickb928]

What's this noise about malware on OS X? How can that be?

First, it's not that big a target, so the serious malware vendors won't write for it. Not enough market.

Second, OS X is substantially more secure than other OSs, so it is not only a more formidable target, but is also natively resistant. So infections are either extremely rare, or nonexistent.

Third, Apple users are just plain smarter AND dumber than the rest of us. So they either avoid the infection by not engaging in risky behavior, or never stray into the path of malware at all.

And last, Apple has assured their users that OS X is simply better than that. It doesn't suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune that other OSs do, by design.

I cannot, and refuse to, belive that there is any significant threat in the wild that requires Apple to issue a response and patch against. And you cannot make me, no matter how hard you try. You cannot convince me even if you can refute each of my assertions, because Apple user I know and trust assure me, even this morning, that this is nothing but an overreaction by Apple to appease the mass media and keep Ballmer from more destruction and mayhem. Oh, and if it were important, Mr. Jobs would have addressed it personally.

So the answer is no.