- Older Macs recently got an update to help them be more secure.
They may be getting up there in years, but older Macs that are still kicking just got a shot in the arm – if you don’t mind the mixed metaphor. In an effort to protect security for Mac users on the older Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple released updates for the platform to help protect users against the Flashback malware that has been attacking Apple users across the world. This is a good start for more layered security, but these users may want to start thinking about updating their platform, as relics such as this version of Leopard can frequently be left open to malware, viruses and more.
This update set also disables older versions of Adobe Flash Player for Macs. One big catch is that these updates are only going to older Mac devices with Intel-bases and those with PowerPC-based central processing will still be left to fend for themselves in the battle against the Flashback malware.
“However, it’s not clear whether PowerPC Macs can be infected by the Flashback malware at all,” MSNBC said about the issue. “The most prevalent route of infection is via a security flaw in Java, the application platform designed to run on any operating system, but the flaw may exist only in versions of Java never released for PowerPC Macs.”
Security News Daily said security experts have always been fairly critical of how Mac handles things. The news source said 600,000 Macs were infected with the Flashback malware and many felt there was a slow reaction. One expert said that the company will have to upgrade how they do security updates or lose valuable customers. Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at Qualys, said more may have to be done in many cases than just simply fix individual problems.
“Updating software reliably does not only mean fixing the problem,” Kandek told Security News Daily, “but also testing whether the fix plays well with other modifications included in the code, plus making sure that it does not break any functions of the software.”
What do you think of Apple’s approach to security? Could it stand some improvement? Let us know in the comments!
your Deep Freeze license count and free for up to 3 years