From Elk Cloner to Flashback

With the recent glut of high profile Mac-based malware like MacDefender and Flashback, it’s easy to forget that Macintosh computers (and Mac malware) have been kicking around for more than thirty years – longer, even, than Windows malware. In fact, the first documented Mac virus actually predated some of the first PC viruses by a good four years. While conventional wisdom has always assumed that Macs are inherently safer than PCs, wider adoption of Macs in recent years has given rise to new and more sophisticated threats, with many suggesting that Apple’s honeymoon with malware authors may be over. As this slideshow of Mac Malware through the years shows, however, Apple machines are no strangers to malicious software.