Anti Virus for Mac.

snollup

Hey there,

Can anyone recommend a good anti virus for Mac?

Thanks.

Username!

You don't need one snollup, you have one already - it's called Macintosh OS.

ronnie3585

I don't really understand why there are no virus' for Macs. Is that the construction of OS is inherently safe/secure?

QuadLeo

There's a few reasons. Mainly because OS X was built from the ground up and is Unix based. Security was top of the list from day one. Although there were viruses on previous OS versions but not on OS X afaik. Not like windows where security issues are constantly patched up. Windows was never designed with security in mind, more compatibility etc...

Another reason is that there are a lot less mac users. So it doesn't have the appeal to hackers etc to attack and write viruses for OS X because it won't spread as quickly or do as much damage. And there's always the micro$oft=satan aspect too. A lot of people run anti virus on macs anyway to catch windows viruses so they don't spread them around the office to windows machines.

So if you really want to run anti virus I've heard this one is good: Link

Thomas_S_Hunterson

You can get Sophos for mac

Cabaal

No real need for anti-virus but thats not to say OSX is 100% secure its not...nothing is but its alot safer then Windows and alot of the lack of virus's has to do with small market share.

For example if you release a e-mail worm that only infects OSX its not going to get as far as a worm then only infects Windows.

tibor

QuadLeo wrote: »

Although there were viruses on previous OS versions but not on OS X afaik.

OSX is becoming a more inviting target for attack as it grows in popularity, here's an example of some recent threats: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001461.html

Two of the more prevalent threats on OSX over the last while are OSX.Leap and OSX.RSPlug.

QuadLeo

tibor wrote: »

OSX is becoming a more inviting target for attack as it grows in popularity, here's an example of some recent threats: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001461.html

Two of the more prevalent threats on OSX over the last while are OSX.Leap and OSX.RSPlug.

I'm sure there are more than that out there. But I don't think any are a major security risk.

whiterebel

iantivirus seems pretty good. recommended by macformat too.

snollup

Thanks for all your replies. Reckon the days of not needing a/v's for mac's is gone personally. With the iphone n'all running osx there's a lot more reason to target macs now.

AnyHOO, ta.

tibor

QuadLeo wrote: »

I'm sure there are more than that out there. But I don't think any are a major security risk.

You said there were no viruses on OSX, I provided some examples.
There are, of course, many more.

If you don't think having your DNS hijacked and internet traffic potentially routed through malicious servers then I suggest you're not the best person to take computer security advice from.

ZENER

tibor wrote: »

You said there were no viruses on OSX, I provided some examples.
There are, of course, many more.

If you don't think having your DNS hijacked and internet traffic potentially routed through malicious servers then I suggest you're not the best person to take computer security advice from.

I'm inclined to agree here. MacOSX has been virus free only because it's not been financially viable to create one. Virii (sic) have tradionally been developed simply to prove it could be done, lately though the reason for malware is to make money. This alone is reason enough to crack unix/bsd/osx. Imagine cracking more than 50% of the worlds internet servers, how profitable would that be ???

I think it's time we Mac users looked towards the days we need to take this seriously . . . which may be sooner than we like !

ZEN

snollup

ZENER wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree here. MacOSX has been virus free only because it's not been financially viable to create one. Virii (sic) have tradionally been developed simply to prove it could be done, lately though the reason for malware is to make money. This alone is reason enough to crack unix/bsd/osx. Imagine cracking more than 50% of the worlds internet servers, how profitable would that be ???

I think it's time we Mac users looked towards the days we need to take this seriously . . . which may be sooner than we like !

ZEN

+1

Sad Professor

snollup wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies. Reckon the days of not needing a/v's for mac's is gone personally.

It's not (yet). But if you still insist on installing an Anti-virus app just make sure it's free since any protection it provides you with will be purely psychological. Most Mac Anti-virus apps are a joke. The only thing they are kinda good for is protecting your Windows buddies.

I'm not dismissing the possible future threat viruses may pose to the mac but at the moment giving money to some bloatware provider is a mistake.

snollup

Sad Professor wrote: »

It's not (yet). But if you still insist on installing an Anti-virus app just make sure it's free since any protection it provides you with will be purely psychological. Most Mac Anti-virus apps are a joke. The only thing they are kinda good for is protecting your Windows buddies.

I'm not dismissing the possible future threat viruses may pose to the mac but at the moment giving money to some bloatware provider is a mistake.

I'm starting to find that alright. Not ready to hand over any cash yet!!!

QuadLeo

tibor wrote: »

You said there were no viruses on OSX, I provided some examples.
There are, of course, many more.

If you don't think having your DNS hijacked and internet traffic potentially routed through malicious servers then I suggest you're not the best person to take computer security advice from.

If you look at my original post you'll see that I said there were no viruses as far as I know. I didn't say it was fact. And I don't see the viruses you mentioned as a major risk because they are not spreading "in the wild" as said on one of your links. I never claimed to be an expert. Just giving my opinion based on what I've experienced and what I've read. I'm sure if you google "os x viruses" there will be loads of hits. What I'm saying is, as far as I've read no viruses pose a serious threat in a sense that they aren't spreading. But what do I know. I read it on the internet so it may not be true.

I do agree that OS X will definitely require anti virus eventually, probably in the near future, but maybe not just yet. I don't know anybody who has got a virus on their mac but I've never met anybody who has NOT had their windows machine infected with something.

spannerotoole

Because OSX is built on FreeBSD it is vulnerable to FreeBSD Viruses. Apple did not write OSX completely, they just hacked FreeBSD. There are plenty of exploits if someone knows about weaknesses in the system, for example Remote Desktop could become a problem for users if they just leave ports open (in my experience mac users tend to be quite lax when it comes to security) I'm sure applescript can be used to target machines, what about
rm *.* -rf as a command, back up, try it out, see what it does
There are plenty of other exploits like this one that are part of the OS.
They are there for sysadmin purposes, but we all the know the difference between correct an incorrect use of computers. right?

J-blk

spannerotoole wrote: »

I'm sure applescript can be used to target machines, what about
rm *.* -rf as a command, back up, try it out, see what it does

Using a terminal command is not an "exploit" in any way really... I don't think you could just put an rm command in to an Applescript and "infect" someone's Mac because when they download it, they would still have to run the script, which would prompt a warning. Even then wouldn't an rm *.* require sudo terminal privileges?

However, I do agree with your point, Macs are by no means 100% secure, no system is. But I still don't see the need for a dedicated antivirus just yet, as if you exercise common sense (don't run applications/scripts you don't trust or know the source of, don't open random email attachments, ensure your browser is secure and up-to-date, etc), there's not much risk of any infections. That way very well change as Macs grow ever more popular, though as this time, we're still not there. As others have said, I've never heard of Mac/Linux users been infected with anything, whereas everyone I know using Windows has had some problem at some stage. And even though with Linux you can argue that most users are in fact power users, a lot of Mac users know very little about the workings of their system...

QuadLeo

spannerotoole wrote: »

Because OSX is built on FreeBSD it is vulnerable to FreeBSD Viruses. Apple did not write OSX completely, they just hacked FreeBSD.

lol! Is FreeBSD as secure as OS X or did apple try to improve security while they were working on it? Are there many risks for FreeBSD?

spannerotoole wrote: »

I'm sure applescript can be used to target machines, what about rm *.* -rf as a command, back up, try it out, see what it does

I'm not going to try this but I am curious as to what it does? Delete all user files or something?

SouperComputer

tibor wrote: »

If you don't think having your DNS hijacked and internet traffic potentially routed through malicious servers then I suggest you're not the best person to take computer security advice from.

touché. If you don’t know the difference between a virus, a worm and a Trojan, you aren't in much of a commanding position to give advise yourself.

The smartest, most basic move you can make with OSX to help protect yourself is the same as any other OS: Do not perform your everyday tasks under an administrative account. Do that and you have bettered your chances significantly already..............for now.

Most of the exploits for OS X so far have required some sort of user intervention under an account with admin rights.

As others have said, you should at least consider running AV software to avoid passing nasties to other windows machines that may have been unwittingly sent to you.

ClamX AV is free, but it merely detects it does not remove. McAfee is probably the best overall package on OSX in terms of detection and removal, but its been known to cause OS stability issues too.

OSX with it's design has a good chance of staying generally more secure than Windows. However, unless a lot of its user base cops-on and starts exercising basic security practices will change very quickly.

spannerotoole wrote:

Because OSX is built on FreeBSD

Technically its built on Darwin, utilising a MACH microkernel. Darwin is based on a series of BSD codebases, FreeBSD being only one of them. Someone smarter than I can probably give a % of FreeBSD code, but I doubt it would be more than 20%.

Deeper look: http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch.html

tibor

SouperComputer wrote: »

touché. If you don’t know the difference between a virus, a worm and a Trojan, you aren't in much of a commanding position to give advise yourself.

It's pretty damn clear given the context that people were talking about viruses as a superset of Trojan, Worms and other malicious threats, as oppoosed to specifically just file infectors.
:rolleyes:

Dragging the thread down to semantic pedantry isn't gonna help anyone.

Red Alert

I haven't found I needed one in the past year on a heavily used MBP on UCD's network.

snollup

Like most of you all I have never needed a/v on my macs before. Am just thinking I'd rather have one while I don't need it if that makes sense. Am going to try out a few of the free a/v's and will let you all know if find anything half decent.