Virus protection on Applemac?

[paulm]

Have had to go over to the dark side that is applemac as our youngest needed one for her graphic design course at uni' and they're the standard for arty types apparently !

Just setting it up at home before delivering it to her tomorrow and all going well despite being an apple novice, have transferred all her pics and music and stuff okay.

One thing I am not sure about though is anti virus requirements. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that apples are more secure by design, but should I be installing any specific software suitable for the macs or does ordinary norton, avg or whatever do the trick ?

I have an external hard drive that was used for backing up the old windows pc that I was hoping to use for the mac. Does the drive need to be reformatted to suit before it will work ?

I hate being a newb to all this, but have to say so far it's not been too bad and actually I quite like the mac so far :shock: :lol:

Cheers, Paul

 

[Russ]

Hi Paul

We have been running macs now for a few years without any antivirus software and have never had a single virus. Some say that macs can pass on certain viruses' and consider mac users inconsiderate for not installing something like Norton to help stop the spread of viruses' etc... bit to be perfectly honest, even when we were running protected pcs' we were still catching all sorts of viruses'.

Personally' Id never install protection on a mac unless I was 100% convinced that it was really needed.

Russ

 

[jhwbigley]

Have had to go over to the dark side that is applemac as our youngest needed one for her graphic design course at uni' and they're the standard for arty types apparently !

Cheers, Paul

i've got a mac introduction on monday for my course, will be the first and maybe the last time i use mac!

never know, i might find it useful?

John-Henry

 

[dedee]

Paul, I'll second what Russ has said. 4 Years no viruses, no crashes no problems...except for Safari V4 and Nationwide Internet Banking see earlier thread!

I'm sure RogerS will be along soon with more of the same advice.

Good luck with the MAc I am sure you and your daughter will enjoy it.


Can't help with the ext drive as I have only ever used a Mac
Cheers

Andy

 

[TonyW]

We have been running macs now for a few years without any antivirus software and have never had a single virus.

How do you really know? IMO if you never connect to the net or accept software files from others then ok otherwise you do run the risk (although I tend to agree somewhat less than PC).

Paul, I'll second what Russ has said. 4 Years no viruses

Once again how can you be sure that you do not have a virus or other malware without at least running anti virus check?

Do not forget that many virus trojans keyloggers etc are designed just to sit on your system for ages without actually doing any real harm other than prorogation to other systems. Then possibly after enough infections or time have elapsed start to cause damage to systems.

So even though the MAC is seen as a more secure system if it was me I would prefer to protect myself just in case.

Cheers
Tony

 

[dedee]

Tony, point taken.
It would take a better man than I (gunga din) to adequately extoll the improved security of the Mac. Accepted what I should have said is that I have seen no evidence of being infected by any virus, trojan, malware etc etc

Andy

 

[Russ]

We have been running macs now for a few years without any antivirus software and have never had a single virus.

How do you really know? IMO if you never connect to the net or accept software files from others then ok otherwise you do run the risk (although I tend to agree somewhat less than PC).

Simple; We occasionally run virus checks online and no malware, trojans of viruses have ever been detected.

 

[TonyW]

Simple; We occasionally run virus checks online and no malware, trojans of viruses have ever been detected.

Ahh, thats ok then in my book
I know what you mean about running PC's with av and still getting infections - because of that I usually visit online virus checkers once in a while in addition to my permanent application.

dedee, I am quite convinced that the Mac does have some large advantage over PC's security. My theory is that malware authors have in the main concentrated on the PC market for 2 reasons.
1. The worldwide user base is much larger therefore more kudos within the nasty application guild of developers by infecting millions.
2. Probably much harder to write an application to invade Mac territory

BTW - My take on this is purely a personal view without having very much exposure to Mac world.

Cheers
Tony

 

[RogerS]

It's pointless getting suckered into shelling out good tool money for snake oil. No need for any anti-virus stuff on a Mac.

IIRC your external drive should be read perfectly OK by the Mac.

Roger

 

[big soft moose]

It's pointless getting suckered into shelling out good tool money for snake oil. No need for any anti-virus stuff on a Mac.

IIRC your external drive should be read perfectly OK by the Mac.

Roger

no need for any anti virus stuff on a mac ... at the moment , but sooner or later the phishers will wake up to the fact that there are a number of people out there internet banking and carrying out other forms of E commerce with no protection and write a mac trojan to packet sniff your passwords at which point you will be up the proverbial creek sans paddle.

It is also worth noting that most banks/building societies have a proviso in their reimbursment if the victim of identity theft policies that you have to have taken "all resaonable precautions" to prevent the theft from occuring, and "all reasonable precautions" includes running up to date virus software regardless of your IT platform

so when the hypothetical mac user has suddenly lost thousands of pounds from their account and their bank is refusing to reimburse them they might wish that they had invested a few quid in an AV programe. It is down to the individual whether they want to risk this happening to them.

 

[paulm]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, will leave the AV for now, doesn't seem a high priority on the mac (although we have full protection on the other non mac pc's at home).

As she is an impoverished student I think we'll take the risk on her bank account being plundered for now :lol: (point taken though BSM otherwise).

Just transferring other pc back up files off of the external drive before I then try and use it as the backup device for the mac, as the mac did say it would need to reformat it before I aborted the process earlier today. Figured it was best to take the data off and then let the mac flatten it if it wants !

Cheers, Paul

 

[RogerS]

Please tell me how these anti-virus programmes are supposed to work if there isn't a virus out there?

The vast majority of the viruses in the PC leveraged off the fact that Microsoft programmers were too damn lazy to write proper software and protect against stack overflows. Not a rant against Microsoft, just a simple fact. OS X on the Mac is based on Unix which has been around for years and years and years ..also as open source..so all the obvious security holes have been long plugged.

The biggest risk is social-engineering as far as fraud goes and there's no software program that's going to protect you against that.

Ultimately if the user says 'yes please ...instal this program add-on' without engaging their brain cells as to exactly what it is that they are blindly allowing onto their Mac then all the anti-virus software in the world isn't going to protect them.

 

[RogerS]

Paul

The best bit of advice I can give you is to have two accounts on the Mac. One is yours and has full admin rights. Your daughter has her separate account without admin rights. That way you control what gets loaded etc onto the Mac.

Roger

 

[TonyW]

Roger I think that you are incorrect - there are virus out there - maybe small in number for now and possibly relatively low risk of damage.

Very quick google came up with

A support document has recently appeared on Apple's website detailing information “about antivirus utilities available for the Mac OS.” Apple admits that Mac OS X has grown to become popular among regular computer users and hackers alike.

Tech-driven sources point out to a technical note dishing information on Mac antivirus software, noting that this is the first time Apple is faced with suggesting such software for its precious OS. Avid technology news readers will agree that Apple was prone to admitting Mac virus threats sooner or later. Hackers slowly, but imminently, shift their focus towards platforms whose popularity is on the rise.
Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Ad ... 8982.shtml

That down-on-his-luck PC guy from the Apple commercials may be exacting his revenge.

A new type of computer threat specifically for computers running Mac OS X has the blogosphere in uproar as Macintosh owners realize their machines could be just as vulnerable to the cyberattacks that most often target Windows users.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517610,00.html

Just maybe coming to a Mac near you soon. :shock:

I suppose it could be said that there is no point in having a blade guard on a tablesaw - it gets in the way and obstructs view - after all everyone knows that you keep your hands well clear of the spinning sharp bits.

 

[Rob_H]

I have an iMac and a macbook. I ran AV software the other day - for the first time in two years, and it found three trojan viruses. Nothing is 100% safe.

 

[dedee]

even if my banking passwords were nicked in some way, without the card reader thingy and my cash card it is impossible to transfer money out of the nationwide.
Oh and if the thief is using OSX 10.4 and Safari 4 it might not work anyway.

Cheers

Andy

 

[andycktm]

Funny,ps3 owners hate xbox360 owners.
xbox owners dont seem to mind!
Apple owners seem to hate, no look down on pc owners
pc owners don't seem to mind!
Linux users seem to look upon ms users as fools and ms as the devil !
pc/ms users don't seem to mind!
As for viruses the loch ness monster looks more promising
Strange world.

 

[big soft moose]

Roger I think that you are incorrect - there are virus out there - maybe small in number for now and possibly relatively low risk of damage.

Very quick google came up with

A support document has recently appeared on Apple's website detailing information “about antivirus utilities available for the Mac OS.” Apple admits that Mac OS X has grown to become popular among regular computer users and hackers alike.

Tech-driven sources point out to a technical note dishing information on Mac antivirus software, noting that this is the first time Apple is faced with suggesting such software for its precious OS. Avid technology news readers will agree that Apple was prone to admitting Mac virus threats sooner or later. Hackers slowly, but imminently, shift their focus towards platforms whose popularity is on the rise.
Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Ad ... 8982.shtml

That down-on-his-luck PC guy from the Apple commercials may be exacting his revenge.

A new type of computer threat specifically for computers running Mac OS X has the blogosphere in uproar as Macintosh owners realize their machines could be just as vulnerable to the cyberattacks that most often target Windows users.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517610,00.html

Just maybe coming to a Mac near you soon. :shock:

I suppose it could be said that there is no point in having a blade guard on a tablesaw - it gets in the way and obstructs view - after all everyone knows that you keep your hands well clear of the spinning sharp bits.

yep there are about 10 mac viruses about , though most of them are proof of concept types that do nothing more than display a message or mess with the screen saver or what have you - but they demonstrate that its possible and sooner or later somebody will write a more malicious code.

also re the banking situation if you are using up to date av software the bank ought to reimburse your money if your account is looted by Identity fraud , if you arent they wont

to my mind using any coimputer on the internet without AV software is like sleeping arround without using a condom - probably you wont catch anything nasty but is it really worth the risk ?

 

[big soft moose]

even if my banking passwords were nicked in some way, without the card reader thingy and my cash card it is impossible to transfer money out of the nationwide.

unfortunately thats not the case - if your computer is infected with a packet sniffing trojan , or if a third party (most likely another computer) can view your computer in real time without your knowledge they can not only copy any passwords you use but also the electronic identity of your card reader, cash card chip, and your pin number - after all you use it by transmitting it across the net (hence the card reading thingy) and anything that is transmitted on the net can be intercepted if someone is privy to your passwords etc.

the only really safe way is not to bank on line and only use cash machines inside banks and only use cash in shops and garages. However this kind of thing is highly inconvenient so it depends on how paranoid you are prepared to be - for most people banking/shopping on line is an acceptable risk - but it is one that is ameliorated by taking all reasonable precautions including AV software

 

[dedee]

The card reader form the nationwide is not connected to the computer. Your cash card needs to be inserted and your pin number entered. A unique id transaction id from the web page is then entered in to the reader which produces another unique id to be entered on the web. These ids can be used once only so reading them remotely would not help. I think

Andy