Staff WritersSophosLabs is on the case of a second worm targeting the Macintosh operating system to emerge in a week.
The latest, worm, called OSX/Inqtana-A spreads between Apple Macintosh computers via a Bluetooth vulnerability. The new worm has appeared within days of the discovery of the first ever real virus for Mac OS X.Apple has already released a patch against the Bluetooth vulnerability in the middle of last year, leading researchers to think the latest malware will have difficulty gaining traction.
“It’s disturbing to see a second worm for Mac OS X so soon after the first, but it should be remembered that this is only two compared to well over 100,000 viruses for Microsoft operating systems,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. “The good news is that Inqtana is not going to spread successfully in the wild, but this announcement will still be a shock to those in the Mac community who thought hackers were not interested in their operating system.”
Sophos is clearly eager to reverse a belief it discovered among Mac users. A recent report from the company indicates that as many as 79 per cent of people believed that Apple Macintoshes would be targeted more in future, following the discovery of the first Mac OS X worm.
Sophos warns Macintosh users not to be complacent about the potential threat.
“Apple Mac users need to be just as careful about protecting their computers with anti-virus software, firewalls and security patches as their friends and colleagues using Windows,” said Cluley.