McAfee Releases VirusScan For Intel Macs, Warns of Increased Attacks

McAfee on Thursday issued a version of VirusScan 8.0 that runs on Intel-based Macs, although it uses the Rosetta emulation layer and doesnit have native Intel processor support with a Universal Binary. In addition, the company released a white paper from its McAfee Avert Labs group showing that attacks on Mac OS X are on the rise.

The white paper, titled "The New Apple of Malwareis Eye: Is Mac OS X the Next Windows?", notes that the annual rate of vulnerability discovery on Mac OS X increased by 228% from 2003 to 2005, compared to 73% for Microsoftis products. The company also cites Appleis increasingly higher profile as a rationale for hackers to target not only the operating system but also iTunes and iPods.

As The Mac Observer pointed out on Tuesday, not everyone agrees with the points raised by McAfee and other security research firms. In addition, the mainstream media has distorted the effects of recent proofs-of-concept.