Anti-malware in Mac OS X Snow Leopard!

Apple might have included an anti-malware in Mac OS X Snow Leopard

More and more online sources are indicating that Apple has included some form of an anti-malware in the Mac OS X Snow Leopard update.

Snow Leopard is going on sale tomorrow and Apple has not released any kind of information which mentions the inclusion of an anti-virus in it.

The Mac Security Blog has posted a screenshot which shows Snow Leopard warning the user of an infected file which is being opened.

This is not the behaviour shown by the Mac OS X Leopard edition.

Apple has always claimed that Mac OS X is a safer OS out of the box. The company did for a while mention on their website that customers should use an antivirus product to remain safe online.

However, a lot of their Get a Mac ads have targeted Microsoft Windows over malware claiming Mac users are safe.

Checkout: Snow Leopard Contains an Antivirus

Update:

This anti-malware system is apparently connected to the download validation system used by Mac OS X named File Quarantine.

This works only for files which were downloaded from the internet through applications like Apple Safari, Apple Mail or Apple iChat.

In Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the system checks the file against known malware. Apple has the ability to update the list using the system’s Software Update utility.

This means that the system is not designed to clean the system if it does get infected. And the system might not work if the infected file is not downloaded from the web itself.