Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > What are some good anti-virus programs for Mac

What are some good anti-virus programs for Mac
Thread Tools
bruce0515
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Wrightstown, NJ
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 19, 2010, 01:37 PM
 
What antivirus programs are people using on their Mac's. Are they also good for spyware and adware?
     
ibook_steve
Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Jose, CA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 19, 2010, 02:47 PM
 
I don't use anything. Why use up resources and waste money for something that doesn't affect my machine?

Steve
Celebrating 10 years and 4000 posts on MacNN!
     
P
Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 19, 2010, 02:48 PM
 
None, for the last 15 years or so. Has worked fine for me.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
-Q-
Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Atlanta, GA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 19, 2010, 03:38 PM
 
I tried ClamXav, once, just to see how the other half lived. Wasn't a fan.
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 19, 2010, 08:52 PM
 
Spyware and adware, like most viruses, are things of the Windows world. More specifically, they tend to use "features" that Microsoft has invented, like ActiveX. This does not exist in the Mac world, and we're all much safer and more secure because of it.

There are no Mac viruses "in the wild" at the moment-a situation that has persisted for several years. This is because it is very, very hard to get anything past the OS. It's built to enforce security, and you have to be pretty involved to get much to install. Not that Mac users haven't gotten caught by a bug now and then, but they had to actively participate, usually by allowing something they thought was porn or "free" software to install... If you aren't looking to get something for nothing, these are not an issue.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 02:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
There are no Mac viruses "in the wild" at the moment-a situation that has persisted for several years. This is because it is very, very hard to get anything past the OS.

I don't think this is true.

It was very easy to get past Windows XP because everybody and their dog ran as an admin, but since authentication has been required to install stuff and affect your system, I would say it is about equally difficult to compromise your system on either Vista/Windows 7 and OS X if you are *not* running IE in Windows.

You run into problems when you run some random executable that is designed to cause harm and you authenticate to permit that executable to do its thing. In theory you could get a Mac user to turn their machine into a zombie/botnet just the same way as you can on Windows by authorizing stuff.

I question the wisdom of just assuring people that their Mac is impervious to problems. Just be careful about what you authorize by authenticating and you'll be fine, original poster.
     
sek929
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Cape Cod, MA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 02:13 AM
 
I have downloaded things from the seediest areas the web has to offer.

Your Mac does not need such software, trust me.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 02:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
I have downloaded things from the seediest areas the web has to offer.

Your Mac does not need such software, trust me.

I don't disagree with that, I just disagree with the idea that the OS is somehow responsible for this safety, cause that's just not factually true.

I also think it's important to include a caveat about not authenticating to do stuff you aren't sure about too, cause that's just smart viruses or no.
     
P
Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 04:13 AM
 
Win XP (including it's bundled software), and some previous Windows systems, did a few things wrong that noone else has done wrong since the frigging eighties:

* It shipped with network services running and ports open to the world by default
* It included an authentication system, but intentionally broke it in one version (XP Home) and anyway messed up the filesystem so that it was impossible for anyone not running as admin to install a simple application, causing everyone to run as admin
* It removed the ability to disable script execution in untrusted contexts (eg email, browsing) and even autoran scripts when opening emails
* It generally let executable code in untrusted contexts affect the core OS
* It drowned users in warnings about potentially unsafe code until it got them into the habit of just clicking yes all the time

I could go on, but I think that's enough. At the same time, Macs were helped by some quirks in the PowerPC ISA. The cache design and a requirement that all multibyte memory accesses be aligned and a few other technicalities meant that buffer overruns were very tricky to execute. Not impossible - tricky.

In the years since, a lot of things have happened. MS has cleaned up their act in some respects: they sandboxed IE, limited programmatic access to certain commands, turned on the firewall, completely disabled executable code from email etc. They have also added a lot of things to make exploits harder - ASLR, tripwires in standard libs, etc - and have been helped by CPU manufacturers who have added support for execution prevention (NX/XD) on certain pages of RAM. The filesystem is still a mess, meaning that many still run as admin, and some ports are still open quite often, but Windows is no longer exceptionally insecure. Apple has done much less on the "making things harder" front, but also doesn't have the same design flaws still haunting them - and it has users that never got into the habit of clicking "Allow" on everything.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 06:32 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I don't think this is true.

It was very easy to get past Windows XP because everybody and their dog ran as an admin, but since authentication has been required to install stuff and affect your system, I would say it is about equally difficult to compromise your system on either Vista/Windows 7 and OS X if you are *not* running IE in Windows.

You run into problems when you run some random executable that is designed to cause harm and you authenticate to permit that executable to do its thing. In theory you could get a Mac user to turn their machine into a zombie/botnet just the same way as you can on Windows by authorizing stuff.

I question the wisdom of just assuring people that their Mac is impervious to problems. Just be careful about what you authorize by authenticating and you'll be fine, original poster.
You make good points. If users run their Macs as admins, they have a much higher risk level. But the spyware/adware thing is almost entirely based on web "drivebys" that take advantage of IE's porous, perhaps even "malware attractive" features, and the OP was particularly worried about these.

NOBODY can surf as if they are bulletproof. There are things out there that can do you harm, whatever platform you are running. But being attentive, and particularly not looking to "cash in on" something that really shouldn't be free to start with (or would get you talked about like "free pr0n-click here!!!" links), then you are almost certainly going to be fairly safe. And even if you run your Mac as admin, any software will still ask you for permission before it installs. So unless you're after some software that isn't really free (i.e. download what you're getting from reputable sites), there is a very high probability that you'll be quite safe. "Safe surfing" is not difficult, just something that it irks me any of us needs to pay attention to.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 06:59 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I don't think this is true.
Care to give one, just ONE, example of a OS X virus in the wild ?

*crickets*

And please, no trojan crap. A real virus.

-t
     
P
Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 08:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
You make good points. If users run their Macs as admins, they have a much higher risk level.
They are - or we are, I guess - but I would argue that the risk is less than running as administrator on a Win NT derivative. By default, an admin user on a Mac cannot write to the system directories. It can sudo, and there are probably lots of ways to escalate from admin to root without a password (I happen to have a bug filed with Apple on such a method - I even included a proposed fix. They've been aware for close to two years now, have acknowledged that the bug is there and is being taken seriously, but they haven't fixed it) but if you just try to write to a system directory, you will fail. That is a big difference compared to Windows.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 09:11 AM
 
While I don't believe that MacOS is any more secure than Windows, I think it's lack of viruses has much more to do with the proportion of potential infected computers to virus development time: there aren't nearly as many MacOS computers out there to infect as there are Windows computers, and even less in the business world, so why bother developing for the MacOS if your goal is widespread disruption?
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 09:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
And please, no trojan crap. A real virus.

-t
Of course, the vast majority of Windows viruses these days are "trojan crap".
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 09:16 AM
 
For what it's worth, I don't run anti-virus software on either my Windows computer either, and have never had an infection.
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 09:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
While I don't believe that MacOS is any more secure than Windows, I think it's lack of viruses has much more to do with the proportion of potential infected computers to virus development time: there aren't nearly as many MacOS computers out there to infect as there are Windows computers, and even less in the business world, so why bother developing for the MacOS if your goal is widespread disruption?
By default, an initially created user on a freshly installed XP system has admin rights. Even the latest security fixes for XP do not change this behavior. That means that an attempt to install software WILL SUCCEED without necessarily notifying the user. It takes extra actions to run as admin on a Mac, and by default users are just users-so any attempt to install software will FAIL unless the user allows it. That specifically makes the platform more secure.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 10:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
You make good points. If users run their Macs as admins, they have a much higher risk level. But the spyware/adware thing is almost entirely based on web "drivebys" that take advantage of IE's porous, perhaps even "malware attractive" features, and the OP was particularly worried about these.
I don't think that running as an admin is even a problem, it's running as an admin and brainlessly authenticating to everything that pops up is the problem.

NOBODY can surf as if they are bulletproof. There are things out there that can do you harm, whatever platform you are running. But being attentive, and particularly not looking to "cash in on" something that really shouldn't be free to start with (or would get you talked about like "free pr0n-click here!!!" links), then you are almost certainly going to be fairly safe. And even if you run your Mac as admin, any software will still ask you for permission before it installs. So unless you're after some software that isn't really free (i.e. download what you're getting from reputable sites), there is a very high probability that you'll be quite safe. "Safe surfing" is not difficult, just something that it irks me any of us needs to pay attention to.
Agreed!

I also wonder at what point Windows XP will go away, cause it is a big part of the problem.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 10:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Care to give one, just ONE, example of a OS X virus in the wild ?

*crickets*

And please, no trojan crap. A real virus.

-t

That's not my point.
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 10:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
That's not my point.
Maybe you need to craft your quotes and responses more carefully.

-t
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 20, 2010, 10:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Maybe you need to craft your quotes and responses more carefully.

-t

There are no Mac viruses "in the wild" at the moment-a situation that has persisted for several years. This is because it is very, very hard to get anything past the OS.
I don't think this is true.
How does one get from this the idea that because I disagree with this that I must think that there are viruses that propagate under OS X?
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 12:23 AM
 
Because you seem to disagree with his whole statement, incl. There are no Mac viruses "in the wild" at the moment.

You need to be more specific with what you disagree, because you wanted to say that you fully agree with his first sentence, but disagree with his second.

-t
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 12:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Because you seem to disagree with his whole statement, incl. There are no Mac viruses "in the wild" at the moment.

You need to be more specific with what you disagree, because you wanted to say that you fully agree with his first sentence, but disagree with his second.

-t

I disagree.
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 01:02 AM
 
*sigh*

-t
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 10:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I don't think that running as an admin is even a problem, it's running as an admin and brainlessly authenticating to everything that pops up is the problem.
Quite the contrary. In Windows, if you're running as an admin user, you are generally not even prompted to authenticate anything-it just happens. This is the core of the Windows vulnerability issue, I think-automatically making single user systems run with the user as an admin makes these systems very vulnerable simply because there is generally no warning. Now when there IS a warning, plenty of stupid (or more properly, "ignorant") users just say "OK!!!" and effectively shoot themselves in the foot, but more happens without their knowledge than with their help.
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I also wonder at what point Windows XP will go away, cause it is a big part of the problem.
Up until Win7, XP has been the very most secure generally available Windows OS around, with MS working hard to plug every hole that is found. Unfortunately, even with the "complete rewrite" of the code base MS talked about doing to make XP, there are still plenty of holes left over from poor programming practices that developed the underlying processes that this OS is cobbled together with. And since it has so many interdependencies between various modules, these bad modules are just plain hard to find and fix.

If Win7 takes off as it seems to be doing, it should fix much of these issues. And knowing MS, it'll bring its own passel of new issues...

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 12:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Quite the contrary. In Windows, if you're running as an admin user, you are generally not even prompted to authenticate anything-it just happens. This is the core of the Windows vulnerability issue, I think-automatically making single user systems run with the user as an admin makes these systems very vulnerable simply because there is generally no warning. Now when there IS a warning, plenty of stupid (or more properly, "ignorant") users just say "OK!!!" and effectively shoot themselves in the foot, but more happens without their knowledge than with their help.
In Vista and Windows 7 this is so?

Up until Win7, XP has been the very most secure generally available Windows OS around, with MS working hard to plug every hole that is found. Unfortunately, even with the "complete rewrite" of the code base MS talked about doing to make XP, there are still plenty of holes left over from poor programming practices that developed the underlying processes that this OS is cobbled together with. And since it has so many interdependencies between various modules, these bad modules are just plain hard to find and fix.
XP is more secure than Vista and Windows Server?
     
angelmb
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Automatic
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 01:11 PM
 
If you're into paying for such software, or truly need one (e.g. work policy) I would say that Intego's VirusBarrier X6 is your finest choice.
     
cgc
Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Down by the river
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 05:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
For what it's worth, I don't run anti-virus software on either my Windows computer either, and have never had an infection.
How would you know that unless you run an AV program? Sure, no weird behavior to give cause to think you have one but unless you run AV you'll never know.
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 21, 2010, 05:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
How would you know that unless you run an AV program? Sure, no weird behavior to give cause to think you have one but unless you run AV you'll never know.
how do you know you don't have any viruses on your Mac?
     
cgc
Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Down by the river
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 09:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
how do you know you don't have any viruses on your Mac?
Kind of the chicken or the egg? You won't know unless you run AV and you won't run AV unless you suspect. I don't use AV either but just thought I'd raise the question. I have had a virus on my Mac but it was a Java exploit I caught on a Mac word processor forum that affected Windows only... Found via ClamAV. I generally think a two-way firewall like Little Snitch is all you really need.
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 11:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
Kind of the chicken or the egg?
exactly. however, you can usually tell if you have a virus, since the point of a virus is usually self propagation and disruption. you'll hear about the self propagation bit from your friends as they begin receiving odd emails from you. the disruption you'll notice as your computer begins to behave strangely.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 02:57 PM
 
But don't obsess over viruses, you can put yourself in a world of hurt with a trojan as well (simple or complex), and it is dumb to think of trojans as "crap" or "harmless". A trojan is probably not going to sudo rm -rf you, but it could easily turn your computer into a zombie controlled by a botnet that sends out phishing emails or whatever. This is just a matter of tricking somebody to authenticate to let some app do its thing, simple as that - no OS is immune to this sort of social engineering.

IRC seems to be a common means of establishing these sort of botnets, and I'm pretty sure that you don't even need to have inbound IRC access enabled in your firewall for some of these exploits to work.


Again, I'm not trying to scare, but it is dumb to think that your Mac is impervious. Brainless authentication = a recipe for a disaster on any OS.
     
turtle777
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 03:16 PM
 
Besson is right.

In essence: don't worry about viruses on a Mac, worry about trojans and malware that use social engineering.
No OS and anti-virus app can protect you from that.

You need to educate yourself, be smart and careful with what you download and allow to be executed.

-t
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 03:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Besson is right.

In essence: don't worry about viruses on a Mac, worry about trojans and malware that use social engineering.
No OS and anti-virus app can protect you from that.

You need to educate yourself, be smart and careful with what you download and allow to be executed.

-t

And this (Turtle's last suggestion) is a far better strategy than any sort of install-and-forget-about-it so-called anti-virus insurance policy, at least for now. There is no easy way for this stuff to auto-install ala Windows XP admins/IE, but the security model is only going to be as strong as its operator is wise on any platform.

One shouldn't be paranoid and scared about random things installing trojans, but one should be taught what sorts of things should set off mental red flags. For instance, you don't need to authenticate to install a so-called "screensaver" unless you *really* want to make it available for everybody on the computer and you are extra sure that it is indeed a screensaver that isn't coupled with a trojan.
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 03:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
In Vista and Windows 7 this is so?
I don't know yet. I haven't installed either. My Windows experience has continued to be with XP, primarily because I haven't spent money on upgrading my hardware so it could run either.
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
XP is more secure than Vista and Windows Server?
I didn't say that. I said what I did rather poorly though. By "generally available" I had meant to exclude Server, and frankly enough people complained about how poorly MS implemented the security features in Vista that I sort of ignored it.

Until Vista, XP was the most secure Windows OS ever, and even since Vista's and 7's releases, XP has continued to get more secure-though not necessarily as secure as the latest updated versions of either Vista or 7. On the other hand, Vista makes it hard to do "normal" things at times, including adding printers, connecting to benign networks and so on. As for 7, I have it and plan to play with it, but I just haven't yet. From what I have read, it is more secure than XP by quite a bit, but I still don't know how much of that extra level of security has to do with real security and how much is from the new driver and extension models in 7.

I would still NEVER run ANY Windows OS without a substantial antivirus package.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 03:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
I don't know yet. I haven't installed either. My Windows experience has continued to be with XP, primarily because I haven't spent money on upgrading my hardware so it could run either.I didn't say that. I said what I did rather poorly though. By "generally available" I had meant to exclude Server, and frankly enough people complained about how poorly MS implemented the security features in Vista that I sort of ignored it.
That's okay, the Server thing was a little anal of me, but Vista and Windows 7 not so much. At some point it is going to be unfair to harp on an OS written, what, ten years ago?! when there have been two major Windows releases since.
     
amazing
Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 05:44 PM
 
There's only one reason to have anti-virus on a Mac, namely if you're sharing loads of docs back and forth with Windows colleagues. You don't want to be the one accused of forwarding an infected doc to Windows users.

Even if there is no way the virus originated with the Mac, you'd still have passed it on--and since you'd be considered a "trusted user" you would indeed have been part of the problem...
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 22, 2010, 06:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
There's only one reason to have anti-virus on a Mac, namely if you're sharing loads of docs back and forth with Windows colleagues. You don't want to be the one accused of forwarding an infected doc to Windows users.

Even if there is no way the virus originated with the Mac, you'd still have passed it on--and since you'd be considered a "trusted user" you would indeed have been part of the problem...

I don't think email has really been the primary point-of-entry for viruses for quite a while now, but I could be wrong.

My sense is that trojans are what is in vogue now, particularly those that involve turning a machine into a zombie that can be controlled remotely.
     
JKT
Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: London, UK
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 10:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by -Q- View Post
I tried ClamXav, once, just to see how the other half lived. Wasn't a fan.
I've been using ClamXav for a long time now, but have only ever set it up to monitor just a few folders (i.e. Downloads, Mail attachments, Mail folders). It has found quite a few phishing e-mails and trojans in that time - 99% in my junk e-mail folder and 100% Windows trojans. In other words, it does what it does well enough for me.

Performance impact is minimal as it only kicks in whenever anything in those few folders changes, so not too often in my case.
     
Spheric Harlot
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: 888500128, C3, 2nd soft.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 11:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
There's only one reason to have anti-virus on a Mac, namely if you're sharing loads of docs back and forth with Windows colleagues. You don't want to be the one accused of forwarding an infected doc to Windows users.

Even if there is no way the virus originated with the Mac, you'd still have passed it on--and since you'd be considered a "trusted user" you would indeed have been part of the problem...
True.

OTOH, other people's bad judgement is not my responsibility.
If they don't secure their machines sufficiently, their problem. To a point.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 01:38 PM
 
Yeah, I don't understand the whole passing on of Windows virus thing at all.

First of all, if you were to "pass on" a virus it would most likely be a spoof, which happens all of the time no matter what you do. In order to actually pass on a virus you'd have to forward it to people. Who in their right mind would forward sexyfungirls.exe or whatever to somebody?
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 01:47 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Yeah, I don't understand the whole passing on of Windows virus thing at all.

First of all, if you were to "pass on" a virus it would most likely be a spoof, which happens all of the time no matter what you do. In order to actually pass on a virus you'd have to forward it to people. Who in their right mind would forward sexyfungirls.exe or whatever to somebody?
I lent a USB key to a friend who copied some infected files to it. when I lent the key to someone else on a Windows box, their virus scanner spotted the files, none of which were named as obviously as sexyfungirls.exe. the actual virus files are usually fairly tough to spot (so as to make getting rid of them harder)
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 01:53 PM
 
Well, for a USB key or something that physically interacts with Windows I would probably want to hose it down after each use too, I guess this is a good reason to have something like ClamAV around if this applies to you... I still probably wouldn't feel terribly upset about somebody infecting their system via a flash drive that was once mounted on my Mac or Linux box though.
     
Spheric Harlot
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: 888500128, C3, 2nd soft.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 01:55 PM
 
You're obviously not a freelancer dealing with clients you need to stay on the good side of, though.
     
Mr. Strat
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: State of WA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 27, 2010, 07:30 PM
 
Thank you for dredging up this popular Mac myth. But it has nothing to do with market share and everything to do with operating system design. Get an education in technology.
     
chafnerjr
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2010
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 28, 2010, 01:12 AM
 
Sophos Antivirus for mac... but mostly so I don't spread Windows bug's around. It's fantastic cross platform AV.
     
Mr. Strat
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: State of WA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 28, 2010, 10:38 AM
 
It's up to the Windows people to protect themselves. If you're getting that many questionable attachments, you need to have a talk with whoever is sending them.

And an apostrophe with the letter 's' signifies possession.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 28, 2010, 12:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by Mr. Strat View Post
Thank you for dredging up this popular Mac myth. But it has nothing to do with market share and everything to do with operating system design. Get an education in technology.

Not any more, at least not so much. Like we've been saying, AFAIK trojans are where it is at now, not self-propogating viruses, and there is nothing specific to OS X that makes it less susceptible to somebody allowing a trojan to do something than Vista or Windows 7.
     
Mr. Strat
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: State of WA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 28, 2010, 01:38 PM
 
With the exception of physical access, special rights, or PEBCAK, there have been no infections of OS X since it was introduced in the spring of 2001. It's not because of market share or any other stupid reason. It's because the operating system is designed with security in mind unlike any version of Windows.
     
besson3c
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: yes
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 28, 2010, 01:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by Mr. Strat View Post
With the exception of physical access, special rights, or PEBCAK, there have been no infections of OS X since it was introduced in the spring of 2001. It's not because of market share or any other stupid reason. It's because the operating system is designed with security in mind unlike any version of Windows.

Isn't that sort of like Lisa Simpson's anti-tiger magic rock?

Anybody on any platform can be tricked to go to a phishing site, download something click on it, authenticate, and zombiefy their computer, period. When you can be tricked into providing your admin/sudo-capable password for something: game, set, match - you are done for.

I think that a lot of this information about viruses is sort of a leftover from the days of Windows XP when self propagating viruses were big because you could install stuff via ActiveX without any authentication required. Now that authentication is required in Vista and Windows 7, while it is probably easier to just brainlessly click on stuff that is thrusted at you via ActiveX stuff in IE, there is certainly nothing preventing the people that are interested in zombifying machines from going after the Mac too, especially as the Windows XP and IE marketshare (and Windows as a whole) marketshare dwindles.

To all of this I say the solution is the same as it has always been and is a sound and good solution regardless of whether there are 0 trojans out there or 3,000,000: users need to learn to not brainlessly authenticate to do stuff.
     
Mr. Strat
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: State of WA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 28, 2010, 05:19 PM
 
You're not supplying your credentials with Vista or 7, just clicking Yes or No. After being annoyed with this countless times, users just blindly click Yes and go on.

With OS X, you at least have to type in your ID & password.
     
 
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:32 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,