Russian security maker Kaspersky has yet again warned of an increase in attacks focused on Mac OS X. After downplaying the relevance of the additional security mitigations introduced into Microsoft's latest operating system Windows Vista, Kaspersky came down hard on Apple predicting that the Cupertino-based company's platform is next to come under fire. In this context, Kaspersky has debuted a new pet project, and is getting ready for an escalation in Mac OS X attacks.

Konstantin Sapronov, a Kaspersky Lab virus analyst, does not deliver a timetable with the imminent attacks for Mac OS X, but he associates such a moment with the increase in popularity of the Apple operating systems. Could Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard be the tipping point, when the security perception of the Mac platform will reach critical mass, and attacks will become mainstream? Could Safari be the key?

"Mac OS X is continuing to win over consumers. Although the only malicious programs for the operating system are proof of concept, malicious users will increasingly focus on Mac OS X as the number of users grows. This means it will be necessary to analyze malicious programs for Mac OS X on a more frequent basis. Happily, Mac OS X has many tools which can be used both to analyze other programs and for system diagnosis in general. Furthermore, more third-party programs are emerging which can be used both by IT experts and amateur researchers alike," Sapronov commented.

Safari 3.0, a little piece of Leopard is available to Windows Vista and Windows XP users since the debut of this week. And concomitantly, a collection of security vulnerabilities followed the browser to Windows. Inevitably, more will come. Apple hurried to patch the browser and released Safari 3.01 addressing three flaws. One of them can superficially impact Safari on Mac OS X. But since Apple's versions of the browser for the Mac and the Windows platforms share code, additional exploits could hit both operating systems. Maybe Safari 3 for Windows was not the best move that Apple ever made...