Apple, Mac, MacOS, iOS4, iPad, iPhone and (in)security...

Security industry insiders have long known the Mac platform has its holes. The Flashback Trojan is the first in-the-wild issue that's confirmed this, and big-time. More will follow unless Apple steps up its game.

Apple has cultivated a myth about security on the Mac platform. The myth goes like this: Apple users don't need antivirus software. We're more secure than anything out there. Security worries are overblown.

In reality, Apple practiced security by obscurity with the Mac.

Those days may be ending in a hurry. Apple's relative silence about malware is going to have to end as the company finds itself managing a large ecosystem, noted ZDNet's Ed Bott.

Delivering massive security updates during product launches and software rollouts just isn't going to cut it.

                        ===> Read more, YOU should!!! <===

In KB article HT5244, Apple has - apparently for the very first time! - talked openly about a security problem before it has all its threat reponse ducks in a row.

This is good news.

The nightmare scenario for Mac owners is here. At least 600,000 Macs worldwide have been infected, silently, by the Flashback virus.

What makes this outbreak especially chilling is that the owners of infected Macs didn’t have to fall for social engineering, give away their administrative password, or do something stupid.

All they had to do was visit a web page using a Mac that had a current version of Java installed.

Macs are not immune. For years Apple owners have been told that Macs don’t get viruses, but we know that’s not true.

And Apple’s casual approach to security updates makes them arguably more vulnerable to this sort of attack than other platforms.