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"The recent Conficker virus scare had me warning relatives to protect their PCs, while also simultaneously gloating about how lucky I am to not be affected, since I'm a Mac user. You could say it bordered on the obnoxious, and you'd be right. But it looks like I may have to eat some humble pie now that a bug has been found in VMware Fusion that could potentially allow malicious code to be run on your Mac using a virtualized Windows machine as a conduit. Obviously, Windows is still the weak link here, but it doesn't make your Apple machine any less vulnerable."

This is a good reminder that just because it is a Mac, it doesn't mean that it is safe. Especially if you are running Windows on your machine. The flaw in question was discovered by Immunity Inc. exploit researcher Kostya Kortchinsky, and it allows the virtual machine display function to read and write code in the host operating system.

According to the article "Kortchinsky demoed the flaw using a Vista machine running a guest OS of Windows XP, but said the flaw is just as easy to exploit in OS X running Fusion, though they hadn't yet actually run live tests of such a scenario." Luckily, VMware is on top of things and have posted a software update to fix the problem.

The AppleBlog did a comparison of four security programs from last fall for the Mac in case you are interested in checking out a few ways to protect your Mac.

"VMware's "Team Fusion" has announced that an update for Fusion, the company's Intel virtualization solution for Mac OS X, is now available. Version 2.0.2 adds compatibility with virtual machines created in the latest versions of Parallels as well as support for the latest versions of Mac OS X and Ubuntu. Version 2.0.2 can now directly import virtual machines created with Parallels 4 and Parallels Server, a feature many users asked for at Macworld Expo '09 in January. Also, Mac OS X 10.5.6 can now be used as a host OS, and Mac OS X Server 10.5.6 can be used as a guest OS. And if you run Ubuntu, this update adds full support for Ubuntu 8.10—Intrepid Ibex—including pre-compiled VMware Tools and Linux Unity view."

Now that's a cool feature. If you feel "trapped" in Parallels (I don't; I use it by choice. Happily.) then this might be your big "out." I use VMWare at the office to support the company, but at home I still prefer Parallels. With my new MBP, and 2 gigs of my 4 gigs of RAM devoted to the VM, it feels like I'm running an actual Windows PC.

"As a Mac owner, I've been relatively happy with Parallels Desktop which lets me run Windows or Linux builds within Mac OS X. It's seamless and transparent, thanks to the Coherence function that allows Windows apps to appear as if they're Mac apps on my desktop. Now that I have a shiny and peppy new MacBook thanks to a pre-Black Friday deal, I might use some of the savings for VMware Fusion."

If you've ever wanted to dabble in VMWare Fusion, now is definitely the time. Kevin at JK On The Run even found a way to bring the price down even more by using their crossgrade discount so if you're a Parallels Desktop owner, now is really the time to give VMWare a try if you were thinking about it before. I don't personally have a preference. On the rare occasions where I have a need for Windows, I use Parallels but I could just as easily see myself using VMWare Fusion, particularly at this price. The deal expires today though, so act now if you want it.