The antivirus vendor introduced McAfee VirusScan for Mactel on Friday. To back up its statement, McAfee cited the release in March of a patch that fixed 20 vulnerabilities in OS X. A proof-of-concept worm that targeted the OS X platform was also discovered earlier this year.
Many flaws have been discovered in Microsoft products over the same period.
McAfee admitted that Mac users were at "no significant risk" at the moment. But the security vendor also said that if the OS X user base expands, thanks to the popularity of iPod media player and its new range of Intel-powered Macs, then Apple's software will become a more tempting target for organised criminals.
"Historically, Microsoft has been targeted because it has had dominant market share. As there are more Apple users (in the future), more threats will appear," Sal Viveros, a security expert at McAfee, told ZDNet Australia sister site ZDNet UK.
"At this point, there is very little research (into OS X vulnerabilities) and very few people trying to exploit the OS. You have a lot more people trying to find vulnerabilities in Windows at the moment, but we believe that as more people put the time into finding vulnerabilities in Apple OSes, they will become just as vulnerable as any other OS," Viveros added.
Some Apple users have reacted angrily in the past to suggestions that the Mac platform is becoming less secure, pointing out that Microsoft regularly releases critical patches.
But Secunia said that it also believes that hackers are likely to focus more resources on finding vulnerabilities in Mac OS X.
"Windows still has a much larger user base than Mac, and is therefore much more interesting to find vulnerabilities in," a representative for the security monitoring company said. "However, the interest in finding vulnerabilities will increase if the popularity of Mac systems grows. We have seen the same increase in discovered vulnerabilities in the Mozilla and Firefox browsers as they increased in popularity."
Secunia added that Mac operating systems are far less at risk than Windows systems are when it comes to blanket attacks, but said they were just as vulnerable to targeted attacks.
"For large-scale attacks, the risk seems smaller than other operating systems, considering the user-base size. However, it is just as prone to small and direct attacks as other OSes," the company's representative said.
Mac OS X has so far proven to carry far fewer security problems for users than its more popular rival. Apple has argued that this is partly due to its code base being inherently more secure than that of Microsoft's Windows. BSD, the Unix variant at the heart of OS X, was designed from the outset to be a networked, multiuser system with levels of security, while Windows comes from a tradition of single-user, non-networked systems.
In addition, some experts have argued that because OpenBSD is open source, it has been scrutinised by more people than Windows.
Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London. For more coverage from ZDNet UK, click here.
Hey, you can't blame them for wanting to drum up business for themselves, but UNTIL at least a proof of concept actually comes out that would fool more than a total MORON, then there is absolutely no reason to buy anything from McAfee or anyone else on the Bill Gates' payroll.
I hope that big check from MS for developing this is going to cover development, because there aren't many Mac people dumb enough to buy security software that's not needed.
And, I'm sorry, but if I happen to pass on a PC virus, then that's NOT my fault for not scanning something that has absolutely no deleterious effect on my computer. The PC user really ought to scan for PC viruses. As if any PC user would even dream of doing anything any differently whatsoever for a Mac user. Mac has to do everyting to ensure compatibilty, the average PC user would have no clue of even the issues involved, let alone have any concern for anyone on a Mac.
So, in summary, there actually needs to be a real threat in existence in order to need any security software. I wouldn't put ut past the PC virus community to write a virus just to get this new business, but so far, they seem unable to do it effectively. Sure, there is malarky that is good enough to drum into a PR piece, but no actual virus, nothing whatsoever to be afraid of. If the worst you can do is crash my browser, excuse me if I am not shaking in my boots.
It's a pretty sad commentary when even a comptuer publication can't point this out and just prints the PR piece from the Microsoft partner looking to profit from the booming Macintosh market.