Apple has detailed what changes have been made in the latest Mac OS X Snow Leopard Security update that was released earlier today. Besides adding specific detection for the "Mac Defender" malware, Apple has added a daily update to this database.
Apple maintains a list of known malicious software that is used during the safe download check to determine if a file contains malicious software. The list is stored locally, and with Security Update 2011-003 is updated daily by a background process.
This means that Apple will be able to push out profiles for newly found malware without requiring a new software update.
Users can opt-out of this daily download if they choose.
Top Rated Comments
It's had anti-malware support since 10.6.0 This just makes updating it automatic.
You know what this thing is? An IQ test.
The auto updating kind of makes the feature though since it allows Apple to decouple immediate security threats from their normal update cycle.