What would happen say if you dual boot your MBP into Windows and then you infected windows with a virus. Does it affect the OSX in any way?
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Dual booting to Window OS and then getting a virus.
- Thread starter Bankaimadness
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Windows programs (including viruses, trojans, etc.) cannot run, and are completely harmless in Mac OS X.
Mac Virus/Malware Info
Depends entirely on the virus, but for the most part file permission access is restricted between osx/windows. Meaning that it would be rather difficult for a virus to do anything with no access
Depends entirely on the virus, but for the most part file permission access is restricted between osx/windows. Meaning that it would be rather difficult for a virus to do anything with no access
Which virus has been written to infect both Windows and OS X? Would love to know.
Depends entirely on the virus, but for the most part file permission access is restricted between osx/windows. Meaning that it would be rather difficult for a virus to do anything with no access
Which virus has been written for Mac OS X?
I think he's referring to a Windows virus running in the Windows partition being able to write to the Mac partition. Of course, you'd have to do a LOT of work to make that happen, if at all. It's certainly not going to happen without the user's knowledge, permission and intervention.
Yeah, but again, you are talking about two completely different operating systems written in completely different code. And as far as I know, you can not move files from bootcamp to OS X (without some 3rd party software).
That's the point. You'd have to jump through hoops to try to make such a thing happen, if it's even possible.
Okay, just out of curiosity. What if someone had MacDrive installed?
If a virus is constructed to look for all writeable partitions and do whatever it takes to destroy data on it, wouldn't the presence of MacDrive allow that virus to actually damage the Mac OS X partition?
MacDrive enables Windows to read and write the HFS format, but that doesn't mean Windows would have the proper permissions to write. I seem to recall someone describing a convoluted method of achieving this in one of the virus discussion threads quite a while ago, but I don't recall the details. You might also try MRoogle to see if there's a thread related to transferring files between the Windows and Mac partitions. I seem to remember seeing some questions from people using Boot Camp who wanted to be able to share files between the partitions.
MacDrive can also write to HFS+ formatted volumes, thus my "concern".
I will use that "MRoogle" you speak of. But I'm more of a poster than a searcher, thus my motto.
On an external drive, yes. (I meant to say read and write... corrected) I'm not sure how that works on a Mac's internal drive that's still managed by Mac OS X. My uneducated guess is that it would be a matter of not only format, but permissions.
Yeah, what's up with that? Decided to throw in the towel?
Or using reverse psychology?
I have never used MacDrive with my external drives, thus I have no knowledge of that. I only used it with external drives, but since I only use Windows for less than one hour per month, I never need it. I'm just astounded by MacDrive's "speed", or better said, how fast I can read HFS+ formatted volumes with MacDrive.
I used the NTFS-3G drivers for Mac OS X, and it is slow to read or write NTFS formatted volumes, and writing to FAT32 formatted volumes in Mac OS X is slow too, which is kind if troublesome, if you have 25GB to write and it takes 10 hours.
I used that search thing and found the following:
Yeah, what's up with that? Decided to throw in the towel?
I think the latter, but I doubt it will help. We'll see, maybe Doctor Q could make some analysis about signatures with MRoogle links in it and the effect it has on using MRoogle, meaning are more MRoogle links in signatures leading to more MRoogle searches, or does it not matter anyway.
Interesting that all but one of those quotes were from 2006, the other from 2008. Maybe not much has changed since then.
I avoid the whole issue simply by not infecting my Mac with the world's most popular virus: Windows!
I don't run Boot Camp, Parallels, VMware Fusion, etc. There's nothing I need Windows for that I can't do on Mac OS X, so I don't bother.
Interesting that all but one of those quotes were from 2006, the other from 2008. Maybe not much has changed since then.
I avoid the whole issue simply by not infecting my Mac with the world's most popular virus: Windows!
Windows can run Solitaire natively, and to get the best out of it I run it via BC.
But I get you, Windows is the virus, and I avoid it like hydrochloric acid as much as I can, but at work I sometimes have to use them.
Ah, I just remembered I also work at another company, with an all Windows environment, but as I only have to use two applications there (Avid MC and Explorer), I can get by it, it just takes longer there. Anyway, they were intelligent enough to not connect those machines to the world wild wet.
http://www.solitaireforever.com/klondike/
Now, a sip of hydrochloric acid now and then will clear the sinuses right up!
I still support Windows clients every day via TeamViewer, so I'm still exposed to the Windows environment a lot. I just don't let that stuff touch my Mac.
Thanks, but you shouldn't have. One of the reasons I switched was because of the absence of Solitaire on Mac OS X, it is quite an addictive game, I even played it on my iPod Video with its small screen.
Now I never get to bed, Sid the cussing rabbit won't like that.
Im always amazed by people scared of windows because of viruses, it seems that there is nothing else on windows exept for viruses. Pretty sure if OSX got the same marketshare as windows, there would be plenty of viruses for macs as well.
Anyway before I switched to mac a few months ago, I used windows for 12 years, I only got virus twice and that was on Windows 98 SE. I even stopped using antivirus. Sometimes Iam amazed how people even get those, unless you dumb enough to open weird .exe files or something like doc.exe from your emails, there should not be any problems.
But on the matter of question, no there wont be anything wrong with your OSX, not only that the code is different, but also cuz the file system is totally different.
Anyway before I switched to mac a few months ago, I used windows for 12 years, I only got virus twice and that was on Windows 98 SE. I even stopped using antivirus. Sometimes Iam amazed how people even get those, unless you dumb enough to open weird .exe files or something like doc.exe from your emails, there should not be any problems.
But on the matter of question, no there wont be anything wrong with your OSX, not only that the code is different, but also cuz the file system is totally different.
The Mac OS X Malware Myth Continues
I myself am not scared of Windows, I just don't like how I have to use it to make it work the way I want. Mac OS X is easier to handle for me.
I used Windows since its 3.x days until Windows XP SP2, although I was partial to Windows 2000. I also didn't get much viruses and it only infected my system once.
When I look at Windows now, I just don't care anymore for it, it is ugly, and as the interface is the one I see and have to interact with, I don't really care about the stuff, that has been done under the hood, as good as it might be. Mac OS X is easy on the eyes, thus easier to look at and can be worked with for longer periods of times.