BBC NEWS | Technology | Malicious worm aims to bite Apple [1]
A Worm, or rather a Trojan, called Leap-A, has reared it’s ugly head on OS X.
Apple has labelled as malicious software rather than a worm or virus, and this is correct, since it doesn’t propagate by itself.
But…This was bound to happen. I too often hear Mac users talk about the immunity of the Apple platform, and I agree 100% with the comments [2] made by BBC commentator Bill Thompson in January. Bill Thompson is a long-time Mac user, and he points out that Apple users have been ‘too smug’ over security .
I’ve repeatedly pointed in Internet forums, out that writing malicious software for Mac OS X, should be at least as easy as it is on Windows, due to the high level of ‘programmability’ that is possible with Mac OS X.
This should be a wake-up call, but I’ve noticed that the people that always argue that Mac OS X is invulnerable, are extremely quiet these days.
So do you need to install anti-virus software on Mac OS X? I’d strongly advise that you do that, a good reason is that it will stop you from unknowingly forward infected files, that are targeting Windows, to your friends.
So far I’ve had the ClamXav [3] recommended. ClamXav is based on the Open Source anti-virus progam ClamAV [4].