Apple Goes To Kaspersky For Virus Advice

Apple is no longer the “safe” choice for computer shoppers as various malicious software downloads have become available over the last several months. Now with the Flashback trojan infecting more than 500,000 Apple computer systems via the Mac OS X operating platform, Apple has turned to computer virus experts Kaspersky Labs to help them better protect Apple computers.

Apple recently released two Flashback removal tools however the number of machines still infected remains high.

Nikolai Grebennikov, CTO of Kaspersky spoke to Computing on Monday and revealed that OS X is a “really vulnerable” operating system and because of that fact “Apple recently invited us to improve its security. We’ve begun an analysis of its vulnerabilities, and the malware targeting it.”

The CTO then attacks his new partners, claiming that Apple is lax on security and slow to fix issues, specifically the Java patch that was eventually released to combat the Flashback trojan.

If Apple being targeted on the PC front is not bad enough, Grebennikov believes the company will next face attacks on the iOS level as malware becomes more readily available on iPhone and iPad devices before the end of 2012.

Apple has often used its “more secure” iOS system to attack Google Android which has witnessed its own set of attacks over the last twelve months as hackers have targeted the Android OS mainly because it is the most popular mobile OS currently available on the open market.

Are you surprised to learn that Apple has been so lax with its security protocols over the years?