There’s this conventional wisdom, unfounded, that Macs were never susceptible to malware. That was certainly not true in the early days. I remember, in 1990 or thereabouts, buying a commercial app from a local computer reseller. This was an app from a major publisher, supplied on a floppy disk, in a shrink-wrapped box. I installed […]

In a recent column I covered the ongoing fear-mongering about alleged OS X and iOS security problems. Over the years, you’ve no doubt read lurid headlines about potential security leaks that might be exploited, only they generally aren’t. Most are based on social engineering, where you are enticed to visit a site, or just stumble on the place. […]

Some months back, a high-profile tech journalist and talk show host posted an overwrought spiel about the possibility of getting malware on a Mac. The few malware outbreaks over the years, such as Flashback, a Java exploit, were cited, and a certain unnamed Mac security app was recommended to protect you from possible misery. Now the […]

When the Flashback trojan horse outbreak occurred in 2011, an estimated 600,000 Macs were infected, a frightening development for those who felt the platform was pretty safe and secure. A Java virus, Apple received lots of criticism for not releasing a fix promptly. At the same time, those who felt that Mac malware would intensify […]