Macs’ Virus Immunity is Reaching Its Expiration Date
10:40 pm, December 1st, 2008, Lonnie Lazar
I got an email today from some friends who run a Bay Area IT consultancy. They deal almost exclusively in the PC trade but are Mac savvy themselves, so I was startled a bit by the subject line for their monthly Good News / Bad News newsletter: Two Very Bad Mac OSX Viruses.
Of course, I knew from chatter over the summer and from more recent conversation that the days of Macs being impervious to viruses and malware are probably numbered and sure enough, even Apple Support now officially recommends users install antivirus protection on Mac systems:
Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.
The Apple knowledge base article goes on to recommend programs from Intego, Symantec/Norton and McAfee, all of which are commercially licensed products.
My consulting friends recommended iAntivirus, which is a free program, and said, “We have never used it but reviewers say it is good for being a free program. Download and use all free software with caution!”
Another free Mac virus checker (though the developer gratefully accepts all donations) is ClamXav, an updated version of which was released on Monday; the program gets 4.25 stars at Mac Update.
So, is that it? Are we all going to opt for the flu shot from now on? If you’ve installed antivirus software on your Mac, tell us how it’s going and what you like. If you haven’t, or don’t plan to, tell us why in comments.
Posted by Lonnie Lazar in News, Rumors, Software | Comment on this article
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Nah…. No way. 2 viruses aren’t even considered to be a threat. Far from it. I’m sticking to my “Mac has no viruses” argument for at least another five years.
Ryu, on December 1st, 2008 at 11:46 pm
And are those 2 pieces of malware considered to be viruses in the first place?
Ryu, on December 1st, 2008 at 11:46 pm
They weren’t viruses, you still have to give your password to install these.
Never install anything from an untrusted source.
MariusTh86, on December 2nd, 2008 at 12:20 am
It’s obvious to me that this “Ending of an Era” it’s pushed by Antivirus Software Houses that want to break in some important and growing market share.
Today, this is a false alarm, but I’m sure they’re planning something for the future.
Roberto Mauro, on December 2nd, 2008 at 12:41 am
The number of Macs hooked up to the internet is rising and the Mac community has been very vocal about “we’re not prone to a virus”. I think that Mac is about to become a target, both because the number of machines is rising and being it a bit of a challenge to be the first to sink the Titanic.
Also, a lot of user’s will type in their password without thinking, that is exactly why malware is so widely spread on the Windows platform, not just vulnerabilities on the OS itself.
Martijn, on December 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 am
Perhaps a little information about these ‘viruses’ would help us to make a sensible decision about installing anti-virus software.
I understand that a lot of people have been mis-naming trojan horses as viruses, in which case no anti-virus could possibly help.
Chris, on December 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 am
[...] via via [...]
La fin d’une ère. My Ass., on December 2nd, 2008 at 5:37 am
Precisely – the biggest risk at present on OS X is still the hardware which is operating the keyboard.
Alex, on December 2nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
The above comments on the lines of “I will never get infected on my Mac” are, in my opinion, foolish and not a little arrogant. No wonder the PC world loves to hate Mac users! Eventually there probably will be viruses on Macs, and I for one don’t want to get any. So you know better than Apple? Wake up!
I have been using ClamXav on my Macs, because I don’t want to spread Windows viruses. I tried iAntivirus when it came out, but an update to it made Time Capsule stop working, though it’s probably fixed by now. In the past I used Intego’s suite, but the upgrade price was too steep in the UK (like, what a surprise). Won’t touch Norton or McAfee – bad experiences on PCs.
papamumin, on December 2nd, 2008 at 9:06 am
[...] CultOfMac [...]
mac | Apple äußert sich zum Thema Viren | macfidelity, on December 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
The so-called “arrival” of viri to the Mac OS X platform has not much to do with the growing numbers of Macintosh users, but with the OS’ architecture, which is prone to viri, not Malware.
If you want to read more about this: http://seekingalpha.com/article/52722-the-mac-os-x-malware-myth-continues
It’s really sickening how this “not-news”, uninformed as it is, makes it around the web, it is even in the Top 5 on the BBC News page.
spinnerlys, on December 2nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
If my Mac were in contact with outside Windows machines on a regular basis (it’s not), I might scan outgoing files to protect others. However, I don’t see the point in running antivirus software full time to try and detect a few pieces of malware.
I do, however, make sure that I use safe computing practices, like keeping up with System Updates, closing ports I don’t use, and making sure I know where the stuff I download is from; and I use NoScript with Firefox to help protect against certain kinds of internet-based attacks.
I feel that those practices, which take up only a little bit of time, no money, and relatively little computing resources, are going to keep me safer than just relying on another program that I’ll have to pay for, upgrade, and run constantly just in case there’s an attack (that it may not be able to protect against anyways).
EJ, on December 2nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
“They deal almost exclusively in the PC trade but are Mac savvy themselves, so I was startled a bit by the subject line for their monthly Good News / Bad News newsletter: Two Very Bad Mac OSX Viruses.”
So, what are these viruses? Who are these consultants? Do they have names? What is the name of their company? What is their Mac background specifically?
Apple has pulled the article and stated that it was old and out of date.
http://www.macworld.com/article/137267/2008/12/antivirusremoved.html
“We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld. “The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.â€Â
James Bailey, on December 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
HI,
The reason Macs with OS X don’t have viruses spreading rapidly in the wild is because of the Macs lower marketshare. That’s why when Mac’s marketshare was tremendously lower with OS 9 there was well over 40 plus viruses for the platform. It has nothing to do with the OS X architecture (and unix flavor “open source” development history) and no matter how much larger the marketshare gets and no matter how long it takes, I’ll still be a wrong idiot that thinks the lack of viruses in Mac OS X has something to do with marketshare even though Cowicide has been explaining the facts to my idiot ass for years now and despite my threats that “any day now” there will be tons of viruses for Macs and there ain’t shit.
Signed, Fucking Idiot who can’t admit he’s WRONG even after OS X has not been widely compromised and we are heading toward the better part of a fucking DECADE. By the way, I still think Bush was the bestest president evar too.
Cowicide, on December 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
[...] Macs’ Virus Immunity is Reaching Its Expiration Date Sphere: Related Content [...]
Apple Deletes Antivirus Support Page. A Recant?, on December 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
I don’t even run anti-virus on my vista pc. My monthly malware-bytes scan turns up nothing. This is just trash talking by some journo looking for a story.
NewJohnny, on December 5th, 2008 at 12:42 am
[...] Originally Posted by dmiller68 I can hardly wait for that ad. I predicted a year ago that Apples glory days would soon be over as the popularity increased. The fact that the OS is based on UNIX/Linux now and they use standard Intel processors is only going to make it easier to port viruses. Heck Linux viruses exceeded windows viruses last year. This is the side affect of making your product more mainstream. Yeah it is. I just think it’s fair to point out that it isn’t about a superior platform, but more about if the user base is worth the effort of those that create the viruses. That selling point of no viruses isn’t one that can really be used anymore. [...]
PreGameLobby - Mac or PC?, on February 4th, 2009 at 10:16 am