Antivirus on my Mac???

All anti-virus software will slow down your computer without a doubt. I've been a mac user for around four years now, and I have never experienced any issues with viruses. That may be because I don't go around downloading stupid things and installing them on my computer. It might be because I use click to Flash as much as possible. The majority of the issues with OSX security stem from Flash use.

Antivirus

qwerf123 said:

I've now had my MacBook Air for a week and I'm just wondering if its worth putting an Antivirus on it???

I am continually told that Mac's don't PC viruses but surely there must be Mac viruses about.

Also, does installing an antivirus slow down a mac or reduces its battery life???

Thanks

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Although there are a few anti virus for mac solutions around, the need for you to have is slim to none. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install.

Hope this helps

Uhhh what?

Antivirus

Vanillian said:

Uhhh what?

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what don't you understand?

Mac Virus/Malware Info

MacRumors Search is your friend.

qwerf123 said:

surely there must be Mac viruses about.

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There aren't. You don't need any antivirus software to protect Mac OS X from malware. No viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
Do yourself a big favor and read the link above. It really is all you need to know to protect your Mac from malware.

qwerf123 said:

Also, does installing an antivirus slow down a mac or reduces its battery life?

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Yes.

qwerf123 said:

I was looking around the system preferences on my Mac and saw a setting to turn a firewall on.

Is that recommended to use and does that effect performance/battery life?

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Yes, turn it on. No, it won't affect performance or battery life.

Your best defense is to simply be careful out there and make regular backups. The same goes for Windows. I still have Windows machines and to this day I've never been infected with a virus.

Now is OS X susceptible to viruses? Absolutely. In hacking competitions, macs are usually the first systems to fall. (Even before Windows) (Reference 1)

(Some fanboys won't like my reply... but it's the truth. )

misterneums said:

All anti-virus software will slow down your computer without a doubt. I've been a mac user for around four years now, and I have never experienced any issues with viruses. That may be because I don't go around downloading stupid things and installing them on my computer. It might be because I use click to Flash as much as possible. The majority of the issues with OSX security stem from Flash use.

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But typical users do just that...so a little extra protection cannot hurt.

Yes, Yes.....they dont technically need it, but you're smart and they're not.

sloan47 said:

Now is OS X susceptible to viruses? Absolutely. In hacking competitions, macs are usually the first systems to fall. (Even before Windows)

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It's true that no OS, including Mac OS X, is immune to viruses. However, hacking and viruses are two completely different things and can't be effectively compared. In hacking competitions, the reason why Macs fall before Windows is simply that they schedule attempts on Macs before they schedule attempts on Windows. It has nothing to do with one being easier to hack than the other.

sloan47 said:

(Some fanboys won't like my reply... but it's the truth. )

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I wish people would stop this "fanboy" nonsense. Correcting misstatements and posting facts has nothing to do with anyone being a fanboy; it has to do with posting the truth. I, for one, am not a "fanboy" or any other kind of "boy". I don't hold any special allegiance to Apple or any other computer maker. But facts are facts.

qwerf123 said:

Does anyone here use a Antivirus and can recommend a good one?

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Did you read the Virus/Malware link I posted? Your answer is there.

Antivirus? No. Not on my Windows machines, either. It is not necessary.

1. know where you are going on the internet
2. do not download and open files from unknown sources
3. only use Internet Explorer on sites that require it
4. keep physical access limited and password protect your login

GGJstudios said:

It's true that no OS, including Mac OS X, is immune to viruses. However, hacking and viruses are two completely different things and can't be effectively compared. In hacking competitions, the reason why Macs fall before Windows is simply that they schedule attempts on Macs before they schedule attempts on Windows. It has nothing to do with one being easier to hack than the other.

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I've spent quite a number of years as a software security consultant and I occasionally participate in hacking/"capture the flag" events. While I've never participated in the event I posted, many events when they claim that a system falls before another has nothing to do with the schedule, it's measured from start to finish regardless of when the actual event took place.

And hacking/viruses are two different things... but they are very closely related. If I am able to bypass an application's native permissions and run something as root, I could run a series of terminal commands to achieve an objective. (A buffer overflow comes to mind.) Turn that into a batch file and all of a sudden it's a "virus". (Honestly I hate the term "virus". It's so ambiguous and generic it has no real meaning).

sloan47 said:

I've spent quite a number of years as a software security consultant and I occasionally participate in hacking/"capture the flag" events. While I've never participated in the event I posted, many events when they claim that a system falls before another has nothing to do with the schedule, it's measured from start to finish regardless of when the actual event took place.

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From the very link you posted:

Bekrar said VUPEN plans to hit Internet Explorer 8 on 64-bit Windows 7 (SP1) later in the contest.

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And from this source: Pwn2Own Hacking Contest Host, Security Conference CanSecWest Partly Microsoft Sponsored

But it turns out, Microsoft, Palm, and Google are Sponsors of CanSecWest, conference host of the Pwn2Own contest.

Upon further investigation by OP Editor, Pwn2Own seems to show correlation of preferential scheduling for the CanSecWest security conference sponsors and bias against non-sponsors.

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Read the rest of the article for more details on the apparent bias in scheduling.

sloan47 said:

And hacking/viruses are two different things... but they are very closely related. If I am able to bypass an application's native permissions and run something as root, I could run a series of terminal commands to achieve an objective. (A buffer overflow comes to mind.) Turn that into a batch file and all of a sudden it's a "virus".

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Good luck with that. It's not that simple. For more technical details on why, I suggest browsing a few virus/hacking threads in which munkery participated. He provides a lot of technical detail and sources, so it doesn't make sense to regurgitate it all here again.

GGJstudios said:

It's not that simple.

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ROFL! Of COURSE it's not that simple. I just gave one (very generic) example of a single attack directed toward people who have *no* knowledge of "hacking".

GGJstudios said:

For more technical details on why, I suggest browsing a few virus/hacking threads in which munkery participated. He provides a lot of technical detail and sources, so it doesn't make sense to regurgitate it all here again.

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I'm not going to look it up. Primarily because I have first hand experience identifying and preventing against vulnerabilities. I have intimate knowledge of how the BSD/Unix kernel (and various Mach Microkernel derivatives) operates. (I'm associated with a number of academic publications on the topic.) I don't need a refresher.

sloan47 said:

And hacking/viruses are two different things... but they are very closely related. If I am able to bypass an application's native permissions and run something as root, I could run a series of terminal commands to achieve an objective. (A buffer overflow comes to mind.) Turn that into a batch file and all of a sudden it's a "virus". (Honestly I hate the term "virus". It's so ambiguous and generic it has no real meaning).

Click to expand...

sloan47 said:

I'm not going to look it up. Primarily because I have first hand experience identifying and preventing against vulnerabilities. I have intimate knowledge of how the BSD/Unix kernel (and various Mach Microkernel derivatives) operates. (I'm associated with a number of academic publications on the topic.) I don't need a refresher.

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Can you post links to the publications to which you are associated?

Achieving system level access via exploitation in OS X is highly unlikely due to the low incidence rate of privilege escalation vulnerabilities in OS X. So far, there has only been 1 of these vulnerabilities in OS X in 2011. For comparison, Windows has 73 so far this year; that is almost as many as OS X has had throughout it's entire lifespan.

Mac's don't have viruses.
It's very hard to make viruses for a mac and generally they are limited or do little and apple gets rid of them quickly.

The best thing people do, is make a program, that can do things on your computer, they disguise this as something that it isn't. If you download and installed it, it was not because of a virus or spyware or anything else crazy, its because you installed a program designed to do a specific task (and apple generally warns you the first time when installing/running a program from the internet so even then apple is looking out for you) so that does not count as a hack.

I know apple is good because I made all my family and couple of my friends to get macs, and since then I have never administered a single repair for them, unlike their windows counterparts.

accessoriesguy said:

Mac's don't have viruses.

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To be clear, Mac OS X doesn't have viruses. Earlier versions of the Mac OS did.

accessoriesguy said:

It's very hard to make viruses for a mac and generally they are limited or do little and apple gets rid of them quickly.

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Apple hasn't gotten rid of any Mac OS X viruses, because none have ever been released in the wild. Apple can't get rid of viruses, anyway.

Antivirus on my Mac???

....what for?

As many have said before, there are no viruses in the wild, and the few trojans that are existing need to be prompted by the user....so there is no need.

This thread again?

Doesn't anybody MROOGLE?

Cheffy Dave said:

Doesn't anybody MROOGLE?

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They never did before, so why start now? Actually, it's tougher now that the MRoogle site is down. They have use the manual method of adding "site:forums.macrumors.com" to their Google search terms.

qwerf123 said:

Does anyone here use a Antivirus and can recommend a good one?

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If you'd take the time to read the posts above you it would have already been clear that you DO NOT need antivirus software for your Mac. No viruses exist today that can harm a Mac computer. The few trojans that exist can easily be avoided.

Why slow down your system with unnecessary software?

Everybody that answers "no" to the poll is wrong.

The two most recent releases of OS X have a basic anti-malware utility installed by default.

I doubt everybody that answered is using Leopard or earlier.