My Finnish friends at F-Secure have told me that their security research labs have taken delivery of a proof-of-concept sample for an AdWare application. Nothing particularly exciting or unusual about that, you might think, but if I tell you that it is an AdWare application that targets Mac OS X would you perhaps change your mind?
Bearing in mind, as a proof-of-concept code sample this is still in the realms of theoretical threat, there is no danger out in the wild. Yet. But given that it exploits a combination of the ease of use of a Mac and no Administrator rights in order to attach itself to your user account and then subsequently every application you use, that danger could be very real unless Apple do something drastic to fix the underlying weaknesses in OS X that allow a System Library to be installed without prompting the end user.