As I understand it, many threats simply delete themselves to avoid detection if they find any software that would allow this such as Little Snitch and even Apple's Developer tools.
So you could say that having the Developer tools installed constitutes a form of virus protection.

I'd like to see a poll on who actually got infected by this malware.



You see, these last few variants would not install if you had Office 2008, 2011 or Skype installed (amongst others).

The number of people running a recent Mac, with the Java loophole, without the above software narrows the 'market' for this malware considerably.



I run a tech support company specialising in Mac users, and I have yet to find anyone infected.

The only two sources of information about the 'extent' of this outbreak, were two companies that sell Antivirus software. Methinks they are somewhat self interested in exaggerating the problem in several ways. All the news outlets and web pages that just re-reported these two companies reports, are guilty of sloppy journalism, without checking their sources and providing other sources of non-biased corroboration.


But it is probably a good idea not to get complacent. And we should be pushing Apple to get this covered, rather than rely on thirdparties to fix vulnerabilities in the operating system.

The best thing that Microsoft has done in recent years is provide their own scanner in the form of Security essentials. Apple should provide the same. The one that runs in the background is ok, but it should expose some positive reinforcement that it is doing something and your system is ok.

All this two-bit antivirus software that is coming out now for the Mac is mostly pretty crappy, and causes more problems than they 'fix'. MacKeeper and Dr.Web are two such examples that cause significant problems with you Mac — ridiculous slowdowns to begin with.