Norton certainly impacted my M1 MBP slightly. It’s not a universal binary the last I checked. I was using ESET previously on my Intel MBP and even though it’s considered as one of the best it certainly impacted the performance of the device.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Has Made Major Updates to macOS Malware Protection in 2022
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
you guys should check this suite of software that protect of malware and unwanted connections.
It's free open-source software, very light on ressources and works on older macOS too!
also no, macOS is not secure, it is famous for some of the most ridiculous bugs
like the empty password bug
Should this happen, it will be the ultimate end of privacy and civil liberty, as there’s no trust anymore. I hate to see this happen, feeling safe or otherwise.
Love Oakley's site and work – digging deeper into some aspects of the Mac and showing beautiful paintings I didn't know about. Glad he's getting headlines. 
I think that rubicon was crossed with the original XProtect, if not before. Even if they made no song and dance, the presence of something has long been fairly obvious. The simple fact that there are anti-malware products for macOS indicates some people have felt the need whatever Apple said, or implied, or simply let us assume.
It’s based on a hybrid Mach kernel.
An operating system’s kernel and base system says nothing about security.
All operating systems get attacks and all operating systems need to update security holes and add malware protection.
It will be like this forever.
In the next wave people will be learning to hack into and causing denial of service attacks on AI systems which are almost exclusively running on Linux.
"You got a promotion?
Great. But what you really need is to lose weight and get over your social anxiety issues.
Oh, and you still haven't fixed the damn doorbell. I mean c'monnn!"
nah i rather have it in the background wihout being visible. I like its directly integrated so its seamless
I'm glad it's built into the fabric of the system and just sits there doing its thing quietly.
My experience of 'bolt-on' third-party virus protectors in the Windows world is that they bring the computer down to its knees. And woe betide you ever wanting to fully uninstall them without undertaking a complete rebuild.
My experience of 'bolt-on' third-party virus protectors in the Windows world is that they bring the computer down to its knees. And woe betide you ever wanting to fully uninstall them without undertaking a complete rebuild.
Let's think this one through.
Say Apple were to implement CSAM quietly and secretly after the uproar its announcement caused last year - how would we all feel?
Betrayed, outraged, and disillusioned in Apple, I would imagine.
These forums would be filled with outrage. Tech websites, major newspapers, TV news would be all over it, milking the scandal for 10 million clicks.
The incident would constitute a colossal scandal for Apple and would cost them a ton of goodwill and trust.
What I am getting at is that Apple may be a lot of things, but "really stupid" isn't one of them.
Last edited:
There’s no scandal.
It’s a design and corporate legal issue presently.
In the end CSAM protection will work like this.
Parents and guardians will enable CSAM protection on their children’s devices.
Everyone else can choose not to use it and if they upload any illegal images on iCloud/iMessage servers then the images will be scanned on the server side, the evidence will be quarantined so that Apple is legally cleared, and the user willl be reported to the authorities.
Simple.
Dropbox, Google, Microsoft has been detecting such material on their servers for half a decade using PhotoDNA.
PhotoDNA - Wikipedia
Patrick's book, The Art of Mac Malware, is a great read so far
you guys should check this suite of software that protect of malware and unwanted connections.
It's free open-source software, very light on ressources and works on older macOS too!
also no, macOS is not secure, it is famous for some of the most ridiculous bugs
like the empty password bug
There’s no scandal.
It’s a design and corporate legal issue presently.
In the end CSAM protection will work like this.
Parents and guardians will enable CSAM protection on their children’s devices.
Everyone else can choose not to use it and if they upload any illegal images on iCloud/iMessage servers then the images will be scanned on the server side, the evidence will be quarantined so that Apple is legally cleared, and the user willl be reported to the authorities.
Simple.
Dropbox, Google, Microsoft has been detecting such material on their servers for half a decade using PhotoDNA.
PhotoDNA - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
The whole point of this thought exercise was what would happen if Apple turned on CSAM secretly on users' devices.
Secretly, as in "without knowledge of users".
THAT would be the scandal, not CSAM itself.
If it's implemented secretly, how will parents know to turn it on?
If it's implemented secretly, how will others know to choose to use it or not?
I said ‘In the end’ because right now by design it emphasizes protecting Apple from legal action. It should balance in the end by protecting Apple on the server side and give power to parents to enable it on family devices.
On school/college owned devices it should be enabled by default.
Just curious as I don't really use my Macbook often, is it worth it to get a 3rd party malware and/or antivirus suite for MacOS, or is it secure enough to just run without any additional software?
Ok, but in that case, your comment had nothing to do with the comment you replied to
I have seen that happen with a few Macs that come into my work. What I would do is start up in Safe Mode and perform the scan there. For some reason, Malwarebytes would get hung on some sort of system process/files when just sitting in the background. Uninstalling and Reinstalling would normally fix the issue.
It's not really necessary. Just don't install anything stupid like MacKeeper, TotalAV, or some cleaner app. Be aware of random browser extensions that pop up, any random profiles shown in System Preferences, and Green search magnifying glass icons in your Applications folder.
Malwarebytes is pretty good that removing this kind of crap though.
I don't know anyone uses Linux needs malware protection or whatever protection