To protect or not to protect?

This http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550 used to be a recent Apple KnowledgeBase article in which some apple employee noted that Apple supports the existence and use of multiple antivirus programs on their platform, as such diversity is useful in mitigating the impact of e-threats.

The article was hastily pulled, but not before world+dog found out about it, courtesy of countless bloggers and news websites. A slightly embarrassed Apple spokesperson took center stage to affirm that “We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate”.

The situation “at the coalface” looks otherwise. In recent months the security community has witnessed a spate of new e-threats targeted at OSX systems, or at their users, to be more precise. These are trojans, that purport to be useful software (such as a key generator in the case of Jahlav.A ) but are actually password stealers or other sorts of malware. These run, of course, only with user permission, but as many years of experience with Windows have taught us, that’s not much of an impediment.

In this light, it would perhaps be best if OSX users seriously considered taking the “old and inaccurate” advice.