Apple has pulled a page on its web site advising customers to run antivirus software on their computers. The page had been up for over a year, advising the use of multiple anti-virus engines to block potential attacks. Apple updated the page on Tuesday which helped to bring it to the attention of the media.
The page has now been removed because it was old and out of date, a spokesman has claimed.
“The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box,” the spokesman told the BBC.
The advice attracted interest because Apple has a history of promoting its products as unlikely to get hit by viruses, in stark opposition to Microsoft-based PCs.
“The only possible inaccuracies I saw in the original Apple support article was that poorly chosen language could be interpreted as advising that Mac users use multiple anti-virus products on the same computer, and the list of security vendors was not comprehensive,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security software firm Sophos.
“So I am disappointed to see that the support advisory has been withdrawn after 18 months, rather than had some minor fixes.
“Although I agree that the Mac does include some cool built-in technology to help protect against security threats, these can be circumvented through simple social engineering tricks that we see used by Windows malware every day.”
The original page can be seen at www.archive.org.
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