IT security and data protection firm, Sophos, has availed a free Mac anti-virus product for consumers.
The product is available to Apple Mac home users worldwide, protecting them against Mac- and Windows-specific threats, including Trojan horses, viruses, worms and spyware.
The home edition for Mac has been released in response to growing concern about Mac malware. A recent Sophos survey into the attitudes about Mac security revealed that 95% expect Macs to be increasingly targeted by malware in future.
Although malware is more common on Windows than on Macs, Apple's growing market share makes Mac an increasingly attractive platform for malware authors and hackers to target.
"While most businesses recognise the importance of protecting their Mac computers from malware threats, most home users do not," says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos SA.
"By offering free industrial-strength security to home users, we aim to protect Mac users against today's and tomorrow's threats."
Past threats to Mac users have included:
* Web sites posing as legitimate software vendor sites, but whose downloads are Mac malicious code.
* Malware disguised as pirated software available for download from P2P file-sharing networks.
* Sexy online video links that urge you to install a plug-in to view the content, but infect you with a Mac Trojan horse.
* Popular Twitter accounts, such as that belonging to former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, who have tweeted out links to Web sites designed to infect Mac computers.
* Windows viruses, which come in via e-mail, Web or USB drive, either being passed on to Windows-using friends or colleagues, or infecting virtual installations of Windows installed on a Mac.
"Apple integrated rudimentary protection against a handful of Mac Trojans in Snow Leopard. Of those users surveyed, the large majority believe more malware is on the way," says Myroff.
“Mac users should secure their computers to outwit malware authors. By making the task of infecting Macs more difficult, malware authors will go elsewhere to make a quick buck."
The company says its anti-virus provides automatic on-access detection that runs in the background, which means Mac users don't need to run any manual scans to be protected against the millions of viruses, worms, spyware and Trojans in existence.
Furthermore, strong disinfection capabilities make it easy to clean-up an infection should malware already be in place, Sophos says.
The home edition for Mac can be downloaded from http://sophos.com/freemacav.
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