Snow Leopard Malware Blocker Only Blocks two Trojans

Earlier this week Apple announced that Mac OSX Snow Leopard would come with a malware blocker, which prompted overwhelming excitement. Lets just say that the malware blocker was less than underwhelming. It only blocks two Trojans.

The two Trojans it protects your Mac from are OSX.RSPlug and OSX.Iservice. Even worse, it only scans for the Trojans in a few applications. Intego (an OSX security company) found that the malware blocker is half baked in several ways:

Apple's anti-malware function only scans files downloaded with a handful of applications (Safari, Mail, iChat, Firefox, Entourage, and a few other web browsers) — therefore the disturbingly modest signatures base would be undermined if the user were to download the malware from a BitTorrent application

Apple's anti-malware function currently only scans for two Trojan horses, as of the initial release of Snow Leopard — relying on such a modest set of signatures for malware variants of known OS X families, clearly indicates the premature release of the feature

Apple's anti-malware function receives occasional updates via Apple's Software Update — in respect to malware, even Mac OS X malware, every modified variant of a known malware family enjoys a decent life cycle until it gets detected through malware signatures. In its current form the reliance on occasional Apple Software Updates compared to regular/scheduled independent signatures update, clearly increases the life cycle of a known piece of malware.

I personally believe that the anti malware feature provides a false sense of security. Apple may make it better in the future, but that seems unlikely. Windows Defender was better than this.

Apple Bashes Windows 7, While Talking Snow Leopard

While Microsoft tries to reinvent Windows with their next operating system, Windows 7 Apple has characterised it as “the same old Windows”.

In a keynote speech at the Worldwide Developer Conference Apples Bertrand Serlet said that Windows 7 contained the same complexities of previous versions of Windows.

“Fundamentally it is just another Windows Vista” – Bertrand Serlet

Serlet tried to draw a contrast between Windows and what Apple is doing with Snow Leopard, the next version of its own operating system. "We've come at it from such a different place."

Apples goal with Snow Leopard is to make a “better Leopard”

There are similarities between what Apple's and Microsoft's efforts. Among the new features in Snow Leopard is a feature that adds the Expose window--previewing feature to the Dock--not unlike the Aero Peek feature that Windows 7 has as part of its new task bar.

In all fairness Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are very different Operating Systems.

Windows 7 is largely focused on improving the look, perception and core of the Vista engine, while Snow Leopard is more focused on improving the core.

Apple is also trying to improve Windows compatibility by adding Microsoft Exchange support in Snow Leopard. According to Apple all the user needs to type their e-mail address and password and Snow Leopard will auto detect the exchange server.