Apple finally moves to address Mac Defender malware

Weeks after the appearance of the ‘Mac Defender’ malware, Apple has finally acknowledged the issue and announced that a Mac OS X update will soon arrive which will remove the malicious application.

The issue has until now been met with a familiar Apple strategy, chiefly that of total silence. ZDNet’s Ed Bott said that while the firm’s lack of communication made the scale of the infection "impossible to know for sure" he went on to claim that Mac support calls about the issue numbered as many as 10,000 and 20,000 a day.

"In the coming days, Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove Mac Defender malware and its known variants," the firm said in a support article published on Tuesday.

"The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware."

Bott said that Apple support staff morale at one of Apple’s third-party contract support firms was "horrid" with orders from above that they were not to help customers with the Mac Defender malware.

A document Bott purports to be a directive to support staff dated the 20th of May contains a raft of directives, at the direction of ‘the client’ (Apple), forbidding the support staff from providing any advice that might actually assist with removing the malware.