McAfee Thursday launched an anti-virus product for Intel-based Macs, taking advantage of increased worries about Mac OS X vulnerabilities as Apple Computer migrates machines to Intel's processor.

McAfee VirusScan for Mactel 8.0 runs under the Rosetta emulator included with Mac OS X 10.4.4 and later, software that lets programs originally written for the PowerPC processor to execute on the newer Intel-powered iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro models.

VirusScan for Mactel uses McAfee's standard virus scanning engine, and the software can be centrally managed in enterprises by McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator 3.5 and 3.6.

"As more companies deploy Mac systems running on the Intel platform in mixed environments, the risk of infection will most likely increase," said Eric Winsborrow, McAfee's vice president of marketing, in a statement.

To bolster that take, McAfee on Thursday released a report that outlined a 228 percent increase in the number of Macintosh vulnerabilities from 2003 to 2005. Even so, the number of Mac-targeting viruses since 1987 -- just 76 -- is dwarfed by 160,000+ aimed at Windows during the same period.

Still, McAfee believed the alarm should be sounded. "The availability of Mac exploit code on the Internet makes it an open target for the same types of malware currently plaguing the Windows world," Winsborrow claimed.

The $40 VirusScan for Mactel is available immediately.