While there is an element of 'they would say that wouldn't they' in the annoucement, McAfee has come up with a figure which says that the number of vulnerabilities on the Macintosh platform has increased by about 200 percent in the past three years - from 45 in 2003 to 143 in 2005.

This may be very low compared to the Windows operating systems, but the Mac operating system is just as vulnerable to targeted malware attacks as Windows, McAfee said.

A spokesMcAfee said that, as Apple gets a higher profile, it will become a bigger target and hackers will increasingly point their digital 'lock picks' toward Mac OS X.

News source: The Inquirer