[Infowarrior] - (Stupid) security advice from Apple

[Richard Forno]

While running multiple AVs across an enterprise (ie, one brand for  
servers, another for desktops) is a nice, though not fail-safe layered  
defense, the last time I checked, running multiple AV products on the  
same desktop system was considered "bad" given how they can false- 
positive each other and how much extra load that scanning places on  
the CPU. In my case, aside from a test lab for AV research, I never  
ran multiple AVs on Windows machines, and here's Apple's recommending  
it.[1]

One could parse the vague Apple comment as advice to run "one of  
several" AV products - with the hopes if you're compromised by  
undetected malware on your current AV product, just buy a different  
product and maybe it'll detect it. Or, they're saying "go forth, buy,  
and install multiple AV products on the same system" and then sit back  
to hope one of 'em detects bad things.  Either way it's goofy advice.

--rf

[1] Intego, moreso than Symantec, IMHO, is a first-rate FUD factory on  
Mac security and I view much of their breathlessly-sensational  
security-threat press statements with great scepticism.



http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550?viewlocale=en_US

Mac OS: Antivirus utilities

    * Last Modified: November 21, 2008
    * Article: HT2550

"Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities  
so that virus programmers have more than one application to  
circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550?viewlocale=en_US