[msuper69]

Symantec's CEO says Macs are no safer than PCs.

WTF?

Macs are most certainly safer when it comes to drive-by attacks, viruses and the like.

Sure, social engineering attacks are platform agnostic as they depend on uneducated and clueless half-wits that don't know anything about secure passwords, clicking on links in emails and visiting questionable web sites.

But it really makes me irate when this joker has the gall to imply that Unix-based OS X is just as susceptible to the kinds of attacks that PCs are vulnerable to.

Sorry, go peddle you anti-virus crap to the masses. I know better.

[ghporter]

He didn't quite say "you need to buy our products." In fact he didn't say there were any exploits against OS X specifically. He said to expect more attacks. He said not to depend on history to protect you. He was quite ambiguous about what he said, and the statement "no safer than PCs" is, I think disingenuous. The OS itself is built so differently that THE OS IS SAFER against the kinds of exploits script kiddies have used to mess with Windows. But remember that the only successful Mac exploits have capitalized on social engineering.

ALL computers are as vulnerable as their users are. Click on the wrong thing and you can wind up exposing a lot of private information (slowly, perhaps). But remember, the CEO is the top salesman too; I wouldn't buy a used car from him...

[turtle777]

Yeah, classic FUD. If you don't fall for social engineered malware, you can feel pretty safe on a Mac w/o antivirus.

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

So it's safe to say that Symantec hasn't recovered from the reputation they earned with Norton Utilities for Macintosh in the last few years before they had to pull them from the market?

Nice to see they're still not selling.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Yeah, classic FUD. If you don't fall for social engineered malware, you can feel pretty safe on a Mac w/o antivirus.

-t

...which is an issue that DOES need to be addressed. I've met plenty of "know nothings" who use Macs and who feel bulletproof no matter what they do online. If Mac users continue to behave this way, Mr. Symantec CEO will turn out to be right. We in the Mac world have to be attentive and no longer feel "protected" by the OS-because OS X can't protect anyone from being an idiot.

[PhilCat]

I completely switched to Mac, throwing in the towel to 2 PC machines 6 years ago was because of Norton and others messing with my every moment of the day.

I could be chatting with my Son in Iraq, and every 15 sec, an alert would fly up stopping the chat session.

No amount of purse could force me to use Norton.
Your machine and every file now belongs to them.
But as said, times have changed.

2 days ago,
I was having strange freeze behavior where only option is forcing it down.
After new restart, only using iTunes viewing a clip.
It would stop 1/3 the way.
Again forced to shut down with no other option.

Later noticed some dock icons are now a ? mark. I keep them hid, so it wasn't noticed at first.
iMovie, and a couple others from the dock had ? instead.

Try to activate ? mark on new start would freeze again.
I went as far as inserting MAC disc to inspect the drives, and all reports showed all 4- 1TB drives were OK.

Before heading off to forums in panic, the thought it might be a virus/trojan may have got me.

Restart, and head to Apple site to search about for an anti virus.
Sophos looked like a good choice from reviews.

Their scan found cache java that was infected all in the same folder.
Folder 6.0/54.

2011-02-23 13:27:07 -0600 Threat: 'Troj/JavaBz-C' detected in /Users/phil/Library/Caches/Java/cache/6.0/54/168b2d76-62e2cfd1/g6k1.class

9 entries were dealt with from Sophos site instructions, and all came out fine.

These threats were dated Nov 2010 from some application downloaded.
I searched endlessly trying to figure out the source, but nothing found.

The listed threats listed on Sophos site also matched the same date of Nov 2010.
But no associated application connected, or possible source.

This was the first ever attack in 6 years on any of my Mac machines.
So it might pay to scan.

[Spheric Harlot]

2011-02-23 13:27:07 -0600 Threat: 'Troj/JavaBz-C' detected in /Users/phil/Library/Caches/Java/cache/6.0/54/168b2d76-62e2cfd1/g6k1.class

I'm quite certain that trojan only affects Windows machines.

[PhilCat]

I don't doubt that, but I'm glad it's clean and it's weird free.
I did use the Mac download scan.

This is the version used,
Sophos Anti-Virus
Product version: 7.2.4C
Threat detection engine version: 3.16.1
Threat data version: 4.62
Release date: 07 February 2011

[Rainy Day]

Originally Posted by msuper69 

Symantec's CEO says Macs are no safer than PCs.

WTF?

It's absolutely true: Macs are no safer than PCs… if the Macs have Symantec software installed!

Thought for the day: FUD is a form of Social Engineering.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

...which is an issue that DOES need to be addressed. I've met plenty of "know nothings" who use Macs and who feel bulletproof no matter what they do online.

An idiot is an idiot, no matter what brand of computer he drives. These same people would feel bulletproof on a PC with anti-virus installed.

Originally Posted by PhilCat 

Their scan found cache java that was infected all in the same folder.…

This was the first ever attack in 6 years on any of my Mac machines.
So it might pay to scan.

Or time to remove Java from your Mac. At the very least, you should turn it off in Safari's preferences. No web browser should have Java turned on, unless you have a need (most people don't). Java is a known security risk.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Rainy Day 

An idiot is an idiot, no matter what brand of computer he drives. These same people would feel bulletproof on a PC with anti-virus installed.

Quite true. But the rest of us could reduce the exposure of the overall Mac population by behaving as if there were real threats-even if they aren't automatically installed by pop-under windows. The entire Mac community is to blame for the way most people look at Macs as "completely and permanently safe." We don't "need" antivirus software because stuff can't be installed without our cooperation (in one way or another). But we DO need to be aware of other ways the bad guys can mess us over, and we should ensure that our group culture reinforces that. The focus should not be on "viruses" which are almost exclusively aimed at Windows OSs, but at threats of all kinds.