Worms, Viruses, Trojans and Apples

There has been a huge amount of press coverage, both online and offline, of the ‘new’ Mac OS X virus/worm/trojan out there (depending on who you read it is either virus, a worm or a trojan – I think it is a trojan). Articles have appeared in the Guardian, UK and on the BBC. For some good and accurate coverage check out Macintouch.

Anyway, I decided to run scans on some of the computers around here and was horrified by the vast number worms and viruses found….

I couldn’t believe the number. I had never seen so many. All types and forms. Shocking… The list seemed to go on and on…

When I looked at where all these nasties were lurking I found they all seemed to be in one type of folder. What was going on? Turns out that it was the attachment folder of the mail program! All the viruses/worms were for Windows and had arrived in numerous attachments from friends and colleagues over the years…..

This just goes to show that there may be a trojan around for the Mac OS X, but life in the Mac world is much safer and easier than in the land of windows.

Footnote: Macworld now has a good article on the Leap-A (or Oompa Loompa) malware – the article.