The Worm Is In The Apple

Why choose a Mac over a PC?
A quick Google search will deliver a multitude of 'reasons' lists; one point that's regularly hammered home is that Macs are far less prone to viruses et al.
In fact, friends who own Macs often crow when the latest global Trojan is hammering at Microsoft's door: "Ah well, if you only had an Apple Mac..."
Now however their smiles are fading. Malware called Flashback has infected 2% of all Macs worldwide. To put that into context, the Conficker worm (that plagued massive numbers of PCs in 2009), infected as many as 4-5% of all Windows systems at its peak.
Kaspersky confirms more than 600,000 Macs had been hit by Flashback exploiting a vulnerability in Oracle's Java system. Apple has since issued a patch for Java to Mac users but...its fix came SEVEN WEEKS after Oracle did the same for Windows users!! Apple maintains Java for its users, and has lagged behind Oracle in the fix-it department by months in some cases. It's now released a Flashback removal tool, but only for users of the most recent version of OS X who have chosen not to install Java.
More than half of all Macs infected with Flashback are in the US. Experts have described the Flashback campaign, and the resulting infection of hundreds of thousands of Macs, as "unprecedented". Some security experts pointed to Apple's slow patching as a factor in Flashback's success. Hackers had a seven-week window to examine Oracle's patch before Apple released its fix.
Computer security experts feel Apple needs to look to Microsoft when it comes to handling OS security breaches. For years Apple's mocked Microsoft for its track record in dealing with Windows malware, viruses, and weekly patches. Now the tables have turned. They say the Flashback Trojan is the final nail in the coffin for Apple's stellar security image; that although Microsoft juggles a much larger number of threats, it does a better job of warning customers and delivering fixes.
Apple's image of invulnerability has gone for good....