PCWorld: Flashback Malware Puts Apple in Security Spotlight: Experts Weigh In

Increased market share coupled with Apple's lack of transparency are largely to blame for an uptick in Mac security problems, say experts.

By Howard Baldwin
Apr 13, 2012

It was a busy week for Apple malware hunters fighting the Flashback Trojan horse, which has infected between 270,000 and 600,000 Macs. A bevy of tools to find and remove the malware debuted this week. And two days after promising to release a detection and removal tool, Apple finally offered its own fix.

Now, as the dust settles on what is considered to be the largest Mac malware threat to date, experts have started pointing fingers at Apple as being partially to blame for the scope of the Flashback malware infection. They argue that if Apple were more transparent about security issues--and if it had promptly released a Flashback fix--the extent of the damage could have been smaller. Also contributing to the magnitude of the infections is a boost in the number of Mac OS users, they say.

Click the URL above to read the full article