Legal fears have led to the organisers of a competition to create the first in-the-wild virus to infect Mac OS to halt the event. DVForge, which builds Apple accessories, was offering a $25,000 prize to the first person to create such a virus - so far, none have bene detected in the wild.
The firm put up the cash - which would have gone to the first person to infect two G5 PowerMac computers running Mac OS X 10.3 connected to the internet without firewalls or antivirus protection - in response to a warning from Symantec that the Apple OS would come under increasing attack from viruses. Jack Campbell, chief executive at DVForge, said: "I have taken the difficult decision to cancel our contest. I have been convinced that there may be legal issues stemming from such a contest, beyond those determined by our own legal counsel prior to announcing the contest."
Symantec's warning came in its seventh Internet Security Threat Report, released last week. The firm - which produces a Mac version of its popular Norton Antivirus software - was faced with accusations that it had a vested interest in stirring up fear of viruses among the Mac community following the report's release.
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