WILL THERE BE A SERPENT IN APPLE'S GARDEN?

By D.E.Levine

Apple's decision to incorporate an anti-malware component in its new Snow Leopard operating system has raised questions from security vendors regarding whether the decision might be seen as a challenge to malware developers and result in the development of more malicious files designed for the Mac.

Anti-virus vendors, Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky Labs and Intego all question Apple's decision. Underlying the question is whether they really believe that malware developers will see the anti-malware component as a challenge or whether they see Apple as a real competitor in the anti-virus market.