Mac is less prone to be infected with random viruses that are commonly encountered by PC Windows, and that’s a given knowledge. That’s why a recent Trojan horse virus hidden in a pirated copy of iWork ’09 that circulated on peer-to-peer file-sharing sites was big news because it was the first Macintosh virus to be widely circulated on the Internet (though there have been a handful of proof-of-concept malware iterations over the past few years). But the much lower rate of malware and network attacks isn’t proof that the Mac is immune to such things.

Computerworld’s Macintosh Knowledge Center said that there has been an ongoing debate over the years as to whether Mac users truly have more-secure machines or simply enjoy “security through obscurity” because they represent a relatively modest fraction of all computer users. While this debate will continue—and there are valid arguments on both sides—this article isn’t about that debate; it’s about a pair of simple questions: “How safe is your Mac?” and “How can you make it safer?”

The truth is that Apple does provide a pretty safe platform. The company leverages a number of advanced technologies to keep users and their data safe from harm. For a detailed list, see this Apple white paper (download PDF). But no system is perfect, and there are a number of security holes—many of them easily closed—that are common on Mac OS X systems. Here are 15 ways to fix the most frequently exploited security risks and protect your Mac.

Note: Unless we specifically say a tip applies only to Leopard, it should work with most recent versions of OS X, though the actual steps involved might vary somewhat.

Disable automatic opening of “safe” downloads in Safari

Probably one of the biggest Mac holes is in Apple’s Safari Web browser, which downloads files that you click on or that are embedded in a Web page. That presents a problem because, by default, Safari is designed to open “safe” files as soon as they’ve been downloaded. Unfortunately, the definition of “safe” includes package-installer and disk image files, which can contain malware. If the malware files are embedded in a Web site, they could be downloaded and opened automatically.

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Apple has released Security Update 2009-004 for Tiger PPC, Tiger Intel, Leopard, Server Tiger Universal, and Server Tiger PPC which is recommended for all users and improves the security of Mac OS X.Previous security updates have been incorporated into this security update.

Security Update 2009-004 is available via Software Update and also as standalone installers.

More info and download links for Security Update 2009-004:
• Tiger PPC (130MB)
• Tiger Intel (166MB)
• Leopard (166MB)
• Server Tiger Universal (204MB)
• Server Tiger PPC (130.97MB)

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "JMS in TX" for the heads up.]