Best protection package for firewall and antivirus?

[wiredsc]

I am hunting around for the best protection package for my Powermac G4 with Panther.

Any recommendations?

[edesignuk]

You don't need either. The built in firewall in OS X is fine, and there really aren't any viri targeted at OS X.

[wiredsc]

Brilliant, just saved me some money! thanks

[Dont Hurt Me]

i agree, with the built in firewall, and my service provider has a firewall these kinds of things that are rampent in the windows world just dont seem to affect us Mac users. Its to sweet to own a Mac.:)

[wiredsc]

What a wonderful mac world we live in.

[engelb15]

If you have a broadband connection, a Cable/DSL Router that does NAT should be more than enough when combined with the built in firewall. However I would recoment you buy Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus. If you really thing that no protection on a Mac is good enough you are living in a dream world. Just because you don't know of anyone that has never had a virus, doesnt mean there are none out there. Better safe than sorry.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by engelb15
Just because you don't know of anyone that has never had a virus, doesnt mean there are none out there. Better safe than sorry.
Do you know any viri for OS X? Can you name any? Have you or anyone you know ever had one?

I havn't had one, and don't know anyone (inc. reading these boards) that ever has had a problem.

[tom.96]

Just wondering... macworld.co.uk (and many others) has a story on a new email worm spreading. Does anyone know if Macs would be vulnerable to that?

[engelb15]

Bad example, but here is one from last year. Probably the only one yet, but it only takes one good one.

http://www.lowendmac.com/lite/03/0813.html

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by engelb15
Bad example, but here is one from last year. Probably the only one yet, but it only takes one good one.

http://www.lowendmac.com/lite/03/0813.html

Ha, never heard of that one...neither has SARC. ;)

SARC lists no OS X related vulnerabilities.

[hesitaliandad]

Originally posted by tom.96
Just wondering... macworld.co.uk (and many others) has a story on a new email worm spreading. Does anyone know if Macs would be vulnerable to that?

windows only
norton specs (http://sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.novarg.a@mm.html)

although, i am typing this on a windows machine, however i'm not stupid enough to download crazy attachments like lots of pc users seem to do.

[engelb15]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Ha, never heard of that one...neither has SARC. ;)

SARC lists no OS X related vulnerabilities.

How did you find a list of viruses by OS?

[r6girl]

i use virex through my .mac membership for virus protection. for the firewall, i use the built-in os x firewall as well but have configured it using brickhouse. look here: http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/brickhouse.html

it can be found on versiontracker.com, of course. i first heard of it from a recommendation by leo laporte on tech tv's web site. i had been looking at firewalk, but was swayed to try brickhouse from the article. read leo's article here: http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/mac/story/0,24330,12689,00.html

so far no issues with brickhouse on my g4 rev a 12" pb running 10.2.8. the test on the "Sheilds Up" web site referenced in the tech tv article also yielded good results. it's pretty cool to see what your computer's vulnerabilities are (if any).

hope that helps!

marianne

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by engelb15
How did you find a list of viruses by OS?

http://www.symantec.com/search/

Enter the search terms you want and check the box next to "Viruses, Trojan horses, Worms and Macros" and "Vulnerabilities and Exploits". I search for "os x" and get a single reference to something Apple fixed that applies to other Unixes (kadmind buffer overflow).

[engelb15]

Do the same search for macos x

Check out this article also...
http://projectalchemy.org/toolkit/security/antivirus.htm

They basically say that even if you are never infected by a virus with OS X, you could most likely be a carrier, infecting people on your lan (if you have one), people in your address book, etc...

My point is, if you dont think you need it, fine. Me, I want it. It's kind of like locking the doorknob even if you lock the deadbolt too.;)

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by engelb15
Do the same search for macos x

Check out this article also...
http://projectalchemy.org/toolkit/security/antivirus.htm

They basically say that even if you are never infected by a virus with OS X, you could most likely be a carrier, infecting people on your lan (if you have one), people in your address book, etc...

My point is, if you dont think you need it, fine. Me, I want it. It's kind of like locking the doorknob even if you lock the deadbolt too.;)

No results for "macos x" or even "macos 10". macos and x not in quotes yields many results, all for pre-OS X versions, as far as I could see. Did you find something specific?

[engelb15]

This...the top is just a vunurability that has probably been patched, the rest dont really have any detail.

( I know the screenshot was taken in windows, I don't have a Mac at work) :(

[yamabushi]

I found five for BSD. They probably also affect Darwin and thus OSX.

I found four more results when searching for vulnerabilities and exploits.

The search for macos x appears to return results that have little or nothing to do with MacOSX. Infection of .exe files for example.

[engelb15]

By posting that pic I was not suggesting there are 2000+ viruses for OS X. I think that link I posted above may even be a hoax, but the fact is there are vulnerabilities (agreed few) and viruses are possible even IF none exist now, so why would anyone think they are safe with no protection.

[Rower_CPU]

Gotcha, that was patched a while ago. Now take off the vulnerabilities check mark to just search viruses. Nothing X related there as far as I can see.

The biggest problem I still have with some X users is the old Word autostart virus that still seems to find its way into Office .X. It does no damage but is a pain when the campus mail virus filters spit back messages.

[Makosuke]

As Rower_CPU said, Macs *are* vulnerable to Word macro viruses (sort of). The viruses can infect Mac versions of Word (I've seen it happen), and although they can't do any damage, they can infect documents you send to other people, which at best is annoying, at worst can be destructive if they're on Windows.

Turning off scripting will mostly avoid this if you're careful, of course, but if you work with a lot of people using a lot of Office docs, a virus checker might be a decent idea for their benefit.

Personally, I don't use any virus checking software on my Macs, operating on the assumption that if anything starts to spread my daily dose of MacMinute, MacFixit, and here (among other sites) will alert me to it very quickly.

The biggest issue for us are backdoor holes, but that's what firewalls and security patches are for.

[Pseudonym]

I used Norton for a while (being a naive switcher), but took it off a while back as it can cause more problems than it solves.

The built in Firewall is just fine (I also have one on my Airport Base Station and another one on my ethernet modem - belt, braces and a bit of string tied around my waist!).

I have Virex running in the background care of .mac, but it has never found anything. The point about being a carrier is a good one, and I guess it is mainly Word viruses that are the problem. Many ISPs now routinely scan emails (mine does).

[JDar]

Originally posted by wiredsc
I am hunting around for the best protection package for my Powermac G4 with Panther.

Any recommendations?

In this whole genre consider "Little Snitch" to learn what software on your machine attempts to make outgoing connections. As far as I can tell Little Snitch has been troublefree and informative.

[PubGuy]

Another point to keep in mind:

Since there are no known exploits that can impact OS X now, then any anti-virus software will be useless (if the virus doesn't exist, the program can't detect it). If one does surface, we'll know at the same time as the anti-virus people do and it will make news (since it will most likely impact other internet web servers).

So, having anti-virus on your Mac to protect your Mac is pointless since no exploits exist. When they do, even if you ran an anti-virus program, most people have those set to check for updates monthly/weekly, so you are still exposed.

Your best bet in knowledge. I'll bet you that if an exploit is discovered, Apple will release a security patch as quick as the anti-virus companies can ship an update. Like others, I too tried Norton and it caused more instability in the system than it was worth for me to be a good network client. Besides, my Mac will not be contaminated by these email and logger programs and I sure won't be forwarding any emails to people I know without knowing specifically what the content is.

I just don't see an issue here.

[Makosuke]

PubGuy just explained my Mac virus philosophy far more effectively than I've been able to. If I don't read about it on MacMinute in the morning, my virus checker is not at all likely to catch it, either.

And I've seen virus apps on the Mac cause all kinds of instability. When someone eventually does write a virus, I'll be impressed if it causes enough damage to power users to offset the previous several years' worth of software and OS instability.