Apple slow to fix Mac viruses

The number of viruses attacking the Apple operating system has risen sharply, and the company is proving that it is every bit as bad as Microsoft was a few years ago in dealing with them.

Security researcher Tom Ferris has blown the whistle on Apple's slow reaction to patching saying that he gave Apple notice of several serious security bugs in January and it failed to patch them.

According to a report on the Inquirer, he had to go public to name the vulnerabilities before people were caught by them.

He listed over seven vulnerabilities and Associated Press has uncovered several people who were caught by them.

Ferris, who is a Mac user, said that Apple is in the same state that Microsoft was a few years ago and unable to react to weaknesses in its products.

Apple says it plans to patch the holes Ferris reported in the next automatic update of Mac OSX.