Raid on Russian Firm May Have Taken Down MacDefender Malware

[yamabushi]

It's the responsibility of each user to protect their own system, not to protect everyone else's.

So you would send a virus to someone you know and not care? How selfish.

If you knowingly ignore the fact that you may be sending malicious code to others you may be guilty of a crime. Either way you will be setting yourself up for a civil suit for damages.

I saw an coworker once get fired on the spot after infecting another workers computer and expressing the same sentiment you have to his boss. I have also seen a college student kicked out of school for infecting others through their negligence and refusal to use any method to prevent this. I have seen a person get into serious legal trouble for infecting an important system when they should have known better.

It is every users responsibility to avoid infecting others with malicious code. If a user has any reason to suspect they are infected but fails to act upon it and then transfers it to others they are being negligent.

 

[munkery]

So you would send a virus to someone you know and not care? How selfish.

If you knowingly ignore the fact that you may be sending malicious code to others you may be guilty of a crime. Either way you will be setting yourself up for a civil suit for damages.

I saw an coworker once get fired on the spot after infecting another workers computer and expressing the same sentiment you have to his boss. I have also seen a college student kicked out of school for infecting others through their negligence and refusal to use any method to prevent this. I have seen a person get into serious legal trouble for infecting an important system when they should have known better.

It is every users responsibility to avoid infecting others with malicious code. If a user has any reason to suspect they are infected but fails to act upon it and then transfers it to others they are being negligent.

Antivirus software does not have 100% detection rates so the same thing could be said about and applied to every Windows user that spreads novel malware that are not yet detected.

So you would use Windows around someone you know and not care? How selfish.

 

[GGJstudios]

So you would send a virus to someone you know and not care? How selfish.

So you would let your Windows-using friends operate without recommending antivirus? How selfish. I can't send a virus to anyone, because there are none on my Mac. That's because I don't share files with any Windows user who isn't running antivirus.

As stated in the Mac Virus/Malware Info:

What about sending files to Windows users?

Some users choose to run antivirus such as ClamXav on their Mac to scan for Windows viruses (it also scans for Mac threats), so the Mac user can't pass a virus-infected file to a Windows user. However, a more prudent approach is for every Windows user to be protected by their own AV software, to guard against viruses from any source, not just those that might come from a Mac user.

Running anti-virus on your Mac to protect Windows users from malware is like covering your mouth when you cough in front of the kids, then sending them out without flu shots to a school where a flu epidemic is spreading like wildfire. Great! They might not catch anything from you, but you've left them vulnerable to the greater risk. It's wiser to make sure they have flu shots, so they're protected from infection, whether it be from you or from other people.

If you really want to help your Windows friends, encourage them to get their own anti-virus protection installed, or offer to install it for them.​

If you knowingly ignore the fact that you may be sending malicious code to others you may be guilty of a crime. Either way you will be setting yourself up for a civil suit for damages.

That's ridiculous and false. If you know you're sending a virus, that's one thing, but sending a file and not knowing whether it's infected or not.... zero liability. Besides, that's not what we're talking about. Read the statement above.

It is every users responsibility to avoid infecting others with malicious code. If a user has any reason to suspect they are infected but fails to act upon it and then transfers it to others they are being negligent.

Again, that's not what we're talking about. If you run a Mac, you have no reason to suspect you have any virus-infected files on your system, unless you knowingly accept files from a system you know is infected.