Sophos lists top threats to Mac OS X

Two weeks after launching its free anti-virus software for Mac home users, Sophos has analysed the most commonly encountered malicious software that these people are seeing.

With a claimed 150,000 active users of the free software, the security company said its analysis showed although many of the threats detected were “Windows-specific” and not designed to attack the Mac OS X directly, users of Apple’s computers should not be complacent.

Sophos said its list does show Mac OS X-specific Trojans and other dangerous software and it said the volume will rise.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: "Mac users can no longer afford to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to protecting their machines. So long as Mac users don't properly defend themselves, they will increasingly be perceived as a soft target by cybercriminals and we will therefore see the volume of Mac-specific malware continue to rise.

“It’s reassuring that we've been receiving feedback from users who were surprised to find malware on their beloved Macs. Hopefully, more and more Mac users will start to realise that security isn't just an issue for PC users and they will start to take more measures to protect their computers."

The top 20 most commonly detected threats have been listed on the Sophos Naked Security blog. The company compiled the list from just under 50,000 reports from users of Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition between 2-16 November this year.

The threats Sophos said were typically disguised by hackers on Bittorrent sites or planted on websites as alluring downloads or plugins to view videos and platform-independent Java attacks.