Apple on Tuesday shipped the promised update to help remove the MacDefender malware, and in a surprise move, also added functionality to Mac OS X that will now check for new malware definitions daily.
The move by Apple to add daily malware checks is a significant shift in the way that the company handles malware and potential infections of its customers.
Until now, Apple has handled such incidents on a case by case basis and pushed OS changes when it needed to address a new problem.
But now the company has essentially included an auto-updating anti-malware system with OS X.
The security update that Apple released Tuesday performs several specific tasks.
It adds a new definition to the existing anti-malware checks in OS X, and also will automatically remove any instances of the MacDefender malware that it finds on the machine. But most significantly, security update 2011-003 adds the automatic daily checks for new malware signatures.
Date: 31 May 2011
Source:
Apple Adds Daily Malware Updates to OS X | threatpost