Thursday, May 26, 2011

Surprise, surprise -- Macs are vulnerable to viruses too!


Are you a Mac user? Did you make the switch to Macs because you thought they were so cool and trendy? Did you think they were more reliable than Windows because they never got viruses, and you never had to deal with the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” again?

Well, my dear friends, do I have bad news for you, at least as far as the virus thing is concerned! Then again, it’s not really news anymore; the malware in question, which goes by the name MACDefender and a variety of others, has been known for the last couple of weeks, and, in fact, Apple even knows about it and plans to make an update available soon to fight it (good luck with that, by the way, Apple, because I really don’t think your proposed measures will make a lick of difference).

Anyway, my friends who are Mac users, you’re in trouble. I hope you take this opportunity to learn a very, very important lesson: no computer (operating system) is ever really safe from viruses. What actually happens is that the bad guys don’t target computers with limited users. Until recently, Macs didn’t have a lot of users. Therefore, the bad guys didn’t target it. Instead, they chose to spend time harassing Windows users. But guess what, that ship has sailed! You are (or soon will be) in as much trouble as Windows users. There’s no way around it!

I’ll take this opportunity to address my fellow nerds (i.e. Linux users) as well: what has happened to Mac users can and will happen to you at some point. Just a heads-up!

Be safe out there in cyberland!

Happy computing!

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