Choosing a Mac Antivirus Program: Reasons 1 to 3

Here are the first three reasons to choose Intego for your antivirus (and other Mac security) protection:

1 – Intego has ten years of experience protecting Macs

Only Intego has such long experience protecting Macs from the dangers of the Internet and threats to privacy. While there are some software vendors who are newcomers to Mac protection, Intego has been working with Macs since 1997, and knows Macs inside out. Intego has an accomplished team of Mac developers who make our software the best for this platform.

2 - Intego is the Mac specialist

Intego protects Macs, and only Macs. No other security software company is a Mac-only pure player, and no other company can devote all its time and resources to the specific problems that affect Macs. Other security software vendors sell Windows software, and spend some of their time developing one or two Mac programs to fill out their catalogs, but we at Intego are the Mac specialists.

3 - Intego has a full line of Mac security software

When faced with security problems, you need more than just an antivirus program. Unlike most vendors, Intego has a full line of security software to protect Macs from viruses and malware (VirusBarrier), hackers and vandals (NetBarrier), undesirable Internet content (ContentBarrier), spam and phishing (Personal Antispam), data loss (Personal Backup), and to protect sensitive files (FileGuard). All of Intego’s programs are fully interoperable and work together seamlessly. Choosing Intego software means that there are no worries about dealing with multiple vendors for Mac security solutions.

Stay tuned for more reasons in the days to come…

TechDadBlog Loves ContentBarrier X4

Michael Sheehan, writing on TechDadBlog, gives great marks to ContentBarrier X4, Intego’s parental control software that protects kids from the dangers of the Internet. He likes the way the “assistant gets you going quickly and then the other controls can help you fine-tune your content filtering and protection”, and ends his review saying, “Intego’s Content Barrier X4 is one of the BEST ways to protect your children from the harmful sites and people that exist on today’s Internet. Do your duty as a good parent and protect your kids!” We couldn’t agree more!

OpenOffice.org Releases Security Fix

Users of the alternative (read: free) office suite, OpenOffice.org, should download the latest version of the suite, 2.4.1. This version corrects a flaw in versions 2.0 to 2.4 that can allow malicious users to “execute arbitrary commands on the system with the privileges of the user running OpenOffice.org.”

Safari Carpet Bombing Code Now Public

As Macworld reports, a hacker has made public code that can exploit the Safari carpet bombing problem which we discussed here recently. Apple still hasn’t publicly responded to this issue, in spite of Microsoft issuing a security advisory. While this still doesn’t affect the Mac, it’s a sign that Apple is not taking seriously a vulnerability that seems easy to exploit.

Apple Releases QuickTime 7.5 with Security Fixes

Amidst the hoopla of the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and Steve Jobs’ keynote address announcing the second version of the iPhone, Apple also released a software update: a new version of the QuickTime media software. This version 7.5, a 60 MB update via Software Update, contains no obvious new features, but contains four security fixes for Mac.

According to Apple, opening or playing “maliciously crafted AAC-encoded media content”, “PICT image file[s]“, “Indeo video media content” or “QuickTime content in QuickTime Player” “may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution”. As always, download the QuickTime update as soon as possible, since QuickTime is the backbone for playing all audio and video media on Mac OS X. This update applies to Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger.

Full information about the update is available here.

Microsoft Unhappy with Safari on Windows

Over the past couple of weeks, a controversy has been brewing over a problem with Apple’s Safari browser on Windows. Nitesh Dhanjani found that there is a Safari carpet bombing issue, whereby maliciously crafted web pages can cause Safari on windows to download files automatically, “carpet bombing” a Windows PC by downloading dozens or even hundreds of files to the Desktop. The risk is that these files may be malicious - not necessarily containing malware, but rather scripts, links to websites, or other deceit-ware that can trick users into double-clicking them. The actual downloads aren’t the real problem, but the possibility of combining this with a more serious attack could lead Safari to become a major vector of Windows insecurity.

Microsoft has reacted, issuing a security advisory about a possible “blended threat” using carpet bombing and other techniques to harm PCs. They do point out that they are unaware of any actual threats in the wild, but their advisory is a clear statement that they are unhappy with Apple’s not rectifying this situation. We await more information from Apple.