Speaking to CBR at the Info Security 2012 conference, Kaspersky founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky said that Apple is years behind Microsoft when it comes to security, and the company will have to change the ways it approaches updates following the recent malware attacks.
“I think they [Apple] are ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security,” Kaspersky said. “For many years I’ve been saying that from a security point of view there is no big difference between Mac and Windows. It’s always been possible to develop Mac malware, but this one was a bit different. For example it was asking questions about being installed on the system and, using vulnerabilities, it was able to get to the user mode without any alarms.”
Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Kaspersky said that his company was seeing an increasing amount of malware aimed at the Mac platform. He puts this increase in malware down to the increase in Mac market share.
“Cyber criminals have now recognised that Mac is an interesting area,” Kaspersky said. “Now we have more, it’s not just Flashback or Flashfake. Welcome to Microsoft’s world, Mac. It’s full of malware.”
Kaspersky believes that Apple is going to have to change significantly the way it approaches keeping its users protected from malware.
“They [Apple] will understand very soon that they have the same problems Microsoft had ten or 12 years ago. They will have to make changes in terms of the cycle of updates and so on and will be forced to invest more into their security audits for the software.”
Apple, with more than $100 billion in the bank, is certainly in a position where it could do whatever it takes to offer is users more protection from malware. But it remains to be seen whether it has learned the lessons from the recent malware attacks against its platform.
Only time will tell.
Original Forbes.com Article.
Our Take: It was only a matter of time – for the “right amount” of mac users to accumulate – before Cyber-Criminals turned their attention to the Mac as a malware target. The fact that Mac users have an added sense of “invulnerability” makes them a little EASIER to target with social engineering – they think they can click on links without as much risk as their PC owning friends… those days are GONE. Protection using a quality Anti-Malware such as ESET CyberSecurity is ESSSENTIAL – more so every day.