Kaspersky has gone and done that which was unthinkable just a few years ago; they have announced a commercial antivirus program for Macs. It was unthinkable not because it was impossible but because antivirus protection for Apple computers was largely unnecessary. A lot has changed since then.

Apple computers have long been lauded for not needing the antivirus programs that are so common for Windows PCs. Macs are just as vulnerable to malware but few people have bothered to come up with viruses, spyware or Trojans for the Mac OS because Macintosh computers made up such a small part of the total computers in the world. It was smarter to code malware that could take advantage of the largest percentage of computers. Now that Apple and Macs are becoming ever more popular, malicious programs for the Mac OS are becoming a bigger threat.

"Just because they have not been infected in the past does not mean they are safe now," said Gun Suk Ling, managing director for Kaspersky Lab, Southeast Asia. "For example, a Mac machine may be compromised by Trojans or key loggers without the user being alerted to the presence of the threat."

That’s why Kaspersky, one of the biggest antivirus program developers, has decided to start producing antivirus suites for the Mac. The database contains information on more than 20 million malicious programs on multiple platforms, like Windows and Linux, not just Macs. And Kaspersky updates the database on an hourly basis to make sure that each user’s computer can identify new threats. Kaspersky also says the program uses system resources more economically than previous versions.

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