Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
Snow Leopard Not as Secure as Advertised?
Monday, August 31, 2009 by Michael Holley
Apple has been making big claims about OS X's relative immunity
from viruses designed for PCs for a while now, but decided to take
it a step further with its latest version, Snow Leopard. Presumably
to win points in the enterprise market, the segment traditionally
most concerned about security and the segment to which Apple has
had the most difficulty selling its products, a built-in
anti-malware feature was added to Snow Leopard among other
under-the-hood security upgrades.
According to Symantec, however, Apple's File Quarantine feature
isn't all it's cracked up to be.
From a statement issued by Symantec:
Mac OS X v10.6's File Quarantine feature only
offers basic malware detection capabilities. It is not a
full-featured antivirus solution and does not have the ability to
remove malware from the system. File Quarantine is also
signature-based only. Malware signatures are only as good as its
definitions, requiring Apple to provide regular, timely updates. In
addition, Mac OS X's Software Update technology does not update
automatically, and there is also no UI that allows users to see
what signatures have been added to the system.
Macs are susceptible to online threats just like any other
platform and vulnerabilities do exist. Today more than ever,
computer users need a comprehensive security solution to protect
them against all types of cybercrime, regardless of the platform.
Symantec is a proven leader in the Mac security space and provides
the necessary protection against malware, hackers, adware, identity
theft, and other threats with Norton Internet Security for Mac. In
addition to providing daily definition updates, Norton Internet
Security for Mac removes threats to help ensure the system is clean
and safe, this is a key functionality that Mac OS X v10.6 does not
offer.
McAfee has issues with Apple's File Quarantine
as well, stating that Apple has opened the door for malware coders
to begin focusing on Macintosh products more than ever.
EDIT (9/1/09): Sophos has posted a video demonstrating
how Apple's File Quarantine fails to protect against an infected
USB drive here.
The most important thing about all the commentary is this: do
not rely on Apple's malware protection alone if your machine
contains important data. Much like you wouldn't rely on Microsoft's
built-in Windows defenses alone, enterprise Mac users should
absolutely invest in third-party security software. Even if the
threat isn't as big, it only takes one attack to ruin
everything.
Best,
Michael Holley
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Consulting
& Support
Rochester
IT Consulting & Support
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