Apple aficionados are excited about last Friday’s release of Mac OS X 10.6, aka “Snow Leopard”. Unfortunately, security software vendors haven’t matched that enthusiasm, so the likes of Symantec and Trend Micro do not yet support MacOS 10.6 with their antivirus products.
Consequently, K-Staters should delay deployment of Mac OS X 10.6 until a supported antivirus product is available. K-State currently provides Symantec Antivirus for Macs 10.2.1 (SAV), but Symantec has yet to say when they will support Mac OS X 10.6. SIRT is also testing Trend Micro Security for Mac 1.5 (TMSM) with the expectation of switching from SAV to TMSM this fall. Trend Micro plans to support Mac OS X 10.6 in TMSM 1.5 with the release of a service pack in late October.
We have contacted both vendors and will continue to pressure them until they provide a solution. Watch future InfoTech Tuesday issues for more information.
If you are tempted to say that Macs don’t need protection from malware, save your breath because there’s a growing number of attacks or malware that affect Macs (admittedly a small fraction compared to Windows), and many Macs run Windows in addition to Mac OS while sharing the same file space.
