On November 21, Apple Incorporated posted on their support website a recommendation to Mac users, which read that the company encouraged the use of multiple antivirus services on their computers.

Until now, Apple has been telling customers they did not need to have antivirus software installed on their Mac laptops or desktop computers, since it was deemed by the company as an unnecessary measure.

Now, it seems that the tide has turned and Apple has even recommended some antivirus options to its users, such as Intego VirusBarrier X5, Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11, which are both available on Apple Online Store with a commercial license and McAfee VirusScan for Mac.

Moreover, consumers could also install the ClamXav antivirus that is available for Macs’ operating systems OS X, which is free of any charge.

"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," said an advisory in the support section of the website.

Since Apple ads for the Macs have been long advocating that the computers are immune to malicious software, there’s no telling what has prompted this sudden decision to suggest that users should install antivirus utilities.

Nevertheless, this summer, new versions of AppleScript.THT Trojan horse affected Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 users, exploiting a weakness within the Apple Remote Desktop Agent.

Furthermore, director of security research and communications at McAfee Dave Marcus has revealed that currently, password-stealing Trojans that disguised themselves as apps such as video players, were a major threat to both Microsoft’s PCs and Apple’s Macs, adding that the company had probably come to terms with the fact that Mac platforms could be the target of Trojans, hence their recent recommendation to users.

Update: According to CNET, Apple removed the recommendation from its support site late Tuesday.
"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesperson Bill Evans said.

"The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box," he said. "However, since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection."