New Free Consumer Mac AV From Sophos

IT security and data protection firm Sophos has today announced the availability of a free Mac anti-virus product for consumers, available to download at no charge, with no time limit, and requiring no registration. Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac is available free to Mac home users worldwide, protecting them against all known malware, including both Mac and Windows-specific threats including Trojan horses, viruses, worms and spyware. Visit http://sophos.com/freemacav to learn more and download. Based on Sophos's flagship security software, currently protecting over 100 million business users worldwide, Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac has been released in response to growing concern about Mac malware. A recent Sophos investigation into attitudes about Mac security surveyed 640 people, which revealed that 95% expect Macs to be increasingly targeted by malware in the future*. Although malware is more common on Windows than it is on Mac, Apple's growing market share makes Mac an increasingly attractive platform for malware authors and hackers to target. "While most businesses recognise the importance of protecting their Mac computers from malware threats, most home users do not," said Chris Kraft, product management vice president at Sophos. "By offering free industrial-strength security to home users, we aim to protect Mac users against today's and tomorrow's Mac threats. Everyone knows that Macs are beautiful computers - Sophos wants to lend a hand to keep them that way." Past threats to Mac users have included – Websites that pose as legitimate-looking software vendors sites, but whose downloads are really Mac malicious code.

– Malware disguised as pirated software available for download from P2P file-sharing networks.

– Sexy online video links that urge you to install a plug-in to view the content, but really infect you with a Mac Trojan horse.

– Popular Twitter accounts, such as that belonging to former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, who have tweeted out links to websites designed to infect Mac computers.

– Windows viruses, which come in via email, web or USB drive, either being passed on to Windows-using friends or colleagues, or infecting virtual installations of Windows installed on a Mac. "Most people don't know that Apple acknowledged the malware problem by integrating rudimentary protection against a handful of Mac Trojans in Snow Leopard. But 95% of those surveyed are convinced that more is on the way," explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Wise Mac users will secure their computers now, outwitting malware authors – if we make their jobs of infecting Macs damn difficult, they will go elsewhere to make a quick buck." Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition provides automatic on-access detection that runs in the background, which means Mac users don’t need to run any manual scans to be protected against the millions of viruses, worms, spyware and Trojans in existence. Furthermore, strong disinfection capabilities make it easy to clean-up an infection should malware already be in place. Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac is backed by SophosLabs, the global network of highly skilled researchers and analysts at Sophos, protecting businesses from known and emerging malware.

Sophos has also launched a dedicated Mac support forum to allow users to interact with others in their community and get any questions answered about the product or Mac security. : http://openforum.sophos.com/MacAv

To learn more about product features and download, visit http://sophos.com/freemacav Visit http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com, Sophos’s new security blog, for more information.

Technical Specifications: - Mac with Intel or PowerPC processor - 256 MB of memory - 150 MB of available disk space - Mac with OSX 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard) - Supports All Apple Mac hardware including iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air

* Sophos survey of 645 people, Sept-Oct 2010

About Sophos More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centres. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, UK and Boston, US. More information is available at www.sophos.com.