“Macs don’t get viruses.” Until recently, that was one of the biggest selling points when Apple tried to entice consumers to switch from PCs to Macs. The fact that Macs didn’t have to fear viruses, spyware, and malware wasn’t due to an ironclad operating system but, instead, due to the small market share that Macs held in the computing industry. Malware authors didn’t bother targeting Macs simply because there wasn’t much reward.

As Apple desktops and laptops become more and more popular, they’re also becoming more and more enticing to hackers. In the last few weeks, a new Trojan, dubbed “Boonana” has been spread through Facebook and other social networking sites by tricking users into clicking on certain links. These links launch a Java applet and installs the Trojan on the user’s computer. It then runs in the background, reports system information back, and attempts to spread itself by hijacking the user’s email account. To counter this, Apple has decided to stop pre-installing Java with OSX.

This is just one example of new threats that are putting Mac users at risk, forcing Mac users to adopt an antivirus solution to keep their business and personal information protected. Fortunately, there are a number of good antivirus options for Mac users to combat the rising number of threats. The latest one to hit the market is Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac and best of all, it’s free. It’s a full-blown antivirus solution for Home use that features realtime protection, heuristics, and quarantining.

It is always best practice to keep your system protected with some sort of endpoint protection. With Sophos’s free antivirus software for Macs, you can no longer complain about the price.