The volume of security vulnerabilities discovered in Apple"s Macintosh platform has increased significantly over the last several years, according to a new report released by McAfee"s Avert Labs.
The security software maker contends that the number of flaws found in the Mac operating system has increased by 228 percent since 2003. While the researchers said the number of serious vulnerabilities isolated in the latest version of Apple"s operating system software, Mac OS X, is dwarfed by the quantity of problems unearthed in Microsoft"s rival Windows during the same period, McAfee maintains that as Apple"s products have become more popular, a larger number of glitches are being identified.
Perhaps even more disturbing, based on how closely Apple can tie its current wave of success to hot-selling consumer multimedia products, McAfee said that many of the reported issues have actually been related to the company"s iPod devices and iTunes download service. Apple representatives didn"t immediately return phone calls seeking comment on the report.