BleepingComputer.com: The Mac's Invincibility To Viruses

A mac can be infected by malware, sure it will take quite a while and would be very hard to do, but anything can be infected with malware.

Better to be safe than sorry.

There have been a few viruses that have infected mac's but if Apple says they can't get infected why have they made there own anti-virus program.

Dialga, on Jul 14 2008, 02:24 AM, said:

I didn't know Apple made there own AV. Care to provide a download link for me? I just looked at Apple's Download page for Network & Security and didn't find an Apple AV.

Buddyme2, on Jul 12 2008, 06:39 AM, said:

I have never heard of ClamXav or Little Snitch but will look. I have used Intego's software on my mac, but I am not sure if it is considered good or not. Intego's front page news articles give the impression there have been problems with macs and viruses, such as in this article at their site.

Are ClamXav and Little Snitch better? And what is a router firewall? My router has a 128 bit WEP encryption but the only firewall I have is the Mac Leopard OS firewall and I think one by Intego along with their antivirus.

I also use a windows computer that I wrote about in other threads.

[update - I got a really helpful answer in private message - it appears ClamX and Little Snitch are very helpful apps to have and that I better not be depending on WEP too much, yikes.] I have a lot to learn!

This post has been edited by maryl: 16 July 2008 - 09:30 PM

Anti-virus etc. software for the Mac is rare because it isn't needed.

Yes, you can infect your Mac if you:

* deliberately download malware
* deliberately open it
* provide your administrative username and password

And yes, there are other threats that do exist on Macs, like rootkits, etc. But you have to download them or a person has to hack your computer to install one. They aren't viruses or worms or spyware like we're talking about here, and all computer operating systems have vulnerabilities to rootkits at some level.

Where on Windows, you can get infected simply by previewing an email message in Outlook or Outlook Express - it runs Internet Explorer to render the message in HTML and runs ActiveX and Javascript in the message. Ditto for visiting a malicious site in Internet Explorer. So it is silent and automatic in the worst case on Windows.

The debate is academic though, because there aren't any threats in the wild for Mac users. People have been talking about hypothetical threats for years, since OS X came out (2001?) or so. Yes, it is possible there will be threats for Mac OS X. Windows has several hundred thousand real threats from viruses, worms and spyware right now - real threats, not hypothetical.

The reason for this, as stated before, is that Mac OS X is based on BSD Unix, which was multi-user from the start, and was hardened for security decades before Microsoft started to think about it. Like the User Access Control in Vista which Microsoft just started using in 2007, has been in Unix for decades and was in Mac OS X from the beginning. Vista didn't even implement it very well either it is very annoying. I don't believe it is primarily because therer are fewer Macs in use, although that is of course very true.

Think about it - if you were writing a virus or spyware, say to steal identities, who would you target? Mac users! They generally have more money so they are a "premium" audience. The fact this isn't happening is because it is hard, not because the virus writers aren't interested. It is so easy to do on Windows that they spend their time there.

The reality is you don't need anti-virus on the Mac at this point.

I'm not saying Mac OS X is 100% secure - there is no such thing in computer software.

But, it is exceedingly difficult to keep a Windows machine protected, while it is the default on Macs with no additional software.

The only thing I recommend using on a Mac is an anti-phishing filter - Firefox and the Google Toolbar both have one.

Believe me I know all about the problems on Windows. People bring me computers every week to disinfect. That is not happening on Macs at all.

Similar situation on Linux. A handful of virueses, and none in the wild. Linux users tend to be very tech-saavy so they aren't getting infected either, and there are not a lot of Linux users.

I use all three and Windows is the one with all the problems

This post has been edited by pblinux: 31 July 2008 - 12:13 PM

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Oh?

AppleScript.THT

Two for one

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Care to bet on that?

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So, If malware writers find a flaws and make mac viruses spread like they do on windows then what.

I hear macs get hit by trojan all the time and people no knowing about it till it was late.

This post has been edited by paperclip57: 01 August 2008 - 07:54 PM

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All Hail Groovicus, the Overlord of Grooviland! AKA The Great Point-Prover!

This post has been edited by TechniMan: 14 August 2008 - 02:12 PM