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AVG developing antivirus app for Mac OS X

AVG developing anti-virus app for Mac OS X
Written by Munir Kotadia, Contributor

AVG, which is best known for its free Windows antivirus tool, is developing a version of its security application for Apple's OS X platform. However, the company is not yet sure if the product will make it out of the lab.

Speaking at a media luncheon in Sydney on Thursday afternoon, Larry Bridwell, global security strategist at parent firm Grisoft, revealed that the company's research and development teams have been looking at porting its antivirus application to OS X.

"We are in the process of looking at that and seeing what the benefits of that are -- especially since we have done the [Linux] BSD version, which makes it a little bit easier to port to the Mac.

"It is in research and development right now to see if it is going to come out," said Bridwell.

Security experts have for some time been predicting that Apple's OS X platform will be targeted by the type of malware that is usually associated with Microsoft's Windows operating system. However, apart from a few proof-of-concept samples, OS X seems to have remained untouched.

Bridwell, who admits to using OS X and Linux at home, argued that there is no such thing as a secure operating system.

"If you are buying OS X to be totally secure you are in a dream world. There is no such thing -- on the open market at least -- as a secure operating system.

"There are operating systems that can be locked down to be more secure but as long as human beings use them and as long as humans are susceptible to social engineering and susceptible to making mistakes, those products will have vulnerabilities," he said.

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