Better Safe Than Sorry

First Mac OS X Virus

The first virus for Mac OS X has been encountered today. Called OSX/Leap.A. by F-Secure the Malware was posted via a link to MacRumors forum. Supposedly a screenshot for Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard the virus spreads through iChat.

It appears the victim must be running in Admin. mode to be infected. As with any OS you should generally not be swaning around while in Admin. mode because of the risk of compromising your PC at the "root level" where all the important processes live. If these processes are taken over by rogue software you can lose complete control without even knowing it.

Do yourself a favour and make a new user on your Windows box with less than Admin. privileges before you go wandering off into the Interweb.