TrustDefender launches TrustDefender Pro for Mac to protect MacOS X users from a growing list of online threats

Written by Andreas Baumhof Tuesday, 31 May 2011 01:00

For many years, Apple customers have enjoyed an online environment that was relatively malware-free. Coupled with the desgin and “halo-effect” of its popular iDevices, this has resulted in the phenomenal growth and adoption of Mac OS X and iMacs by both consumers and businesses globally.

This unique selling proposition, together with the growth and potential customer security complacency, has opened the doors for nefarious criminal groups to target the Apple Mac user as an easy and largely unprotected target – especially from socially-engineered attacks.

We at TrustDefender Labs, have seen an increase in activity on the Apple Mac malware front, as reported in the TrustDefender Labs in-depth report of April 2011 - http://www.trustdefender.com/trustdefender-labs-blog-apple-macosx-and-malware-myth-vs-reality.html. During the same period, Apple was also forced to acknowledge the latest wave of high profile threats, including MacDefender, MacSecurity, MacProtector and MacGuard (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650), further attesting to the fact that the Apple Mac user base was now compelling enough for the “bad guys” to target in their money-making criminal activities.

Today, TrustDefender launches the public beta phase of ‘TrustDefender Pro for Mac’ (TDpro for Mac) for home users, executives, corporations and small to medium businesses, all of whom are facing a growing level of online transactional security threats. ‘TDpro for Mac’ provides the same level of transactional security that people around the world have experienced with ‘TrustDefender Pro for Windows’.

TDpro for Mac is not a replacement for existing Internet Security software, but rather complements existing tools to provide a true transactional security solution that secures Mac users when they transact or bank online. TDpro for Mac is fully integrated with the ‘TrustDefender Central Intelligence Server’ and will take advantage of all existing TrustDefender-provided policies for the many financial institutions and enterprises that have deployed TrustDefender’s integrated security and fraud risk management solutions around the world.

For financial institutions, government agencies or any enterprise who have already implemented the TrustDefender integrated security and fraud risk management suite, this means that with the ‘flick of a switch’, all of their Apple Mac users are now protected. It also means that enterprises get a much broader view of their global customer and end user base profile within the Central Intelligence Server, providing a more comprehensive insight in to their security risk landscape and exposure to risk.

“Unfortunately malware writers never sleep and they always target the ‘low hanging fruit’. It seems that the Apple Mac platform is now big enough to attract major criminals. We have seen the same level of development on the Windows platform over the past few years and we expect more transactional trojans for Apple Macs in the near future,” comments Andreas Baumhof, CTO of TrustDefender. “The bad guys already have extensive configuration files to perform very sophisticated and targeted attacks against internet banking, payment gateway, eCommerce and government sites. It is a natural extension to enable these capabilities on the Apple platform as well.”
“We are proud to release our first major Apple Mac version, providing a practical means for Enterprises to proactively mitigate their risk exposure. This is part of our strategy of delivering cross-platform solutions to combat the ever-growing threat of cybercrime.”, concludes Andreas Baumhof, CTO of TrustDefender.
More information on the TrustDefender Pro for Mac version including details how to participate in the beta testing can be found here: http://www.trustdefender.com/go/macbeta.php

TrustDefender protects Orange CU members from fraudulent activity and cyber criminals

TrustDefender secures online banking for BCU