With last week's release of the Mac Defender Trojan Horse program the incidence of Macintosh-based spyware, malware and viruses is trending upward. All Mac users, myself included, should be on the look out for these nasty programs, but they need not be quite as fearful as Windows users -- at least not yet. Malware is an all encompassing term used to describe trojan horse program (which try to fool you into taking some action), spyware (which looks to steal your information or take over your computer) and viruses. Macintosh computers have not been a large target for malware creators, mainly due to the fact that they have been only a small percentage of the computer market. They are not, nor ever have been, immune from malware, though. Back in my days as an IT staffer back in the early 90's we were plagued with, thankfully benign, yet troublesome Mac viruses such as nVir and wDEF. That said, Mac user have had a decades long reprieve from malware attacks, compared to the horrible...