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.
Free anti-virus?
- Thread starter EasyMac.
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Has the security been increased, yes. Completely immune without AV protection...I really doubt it. I personally would NEVER run a Windows machine without protection. My Mac and Linux machines, yes, until proven otherwise.
You need to check some facts before you post such misinformation. There are many Windows viruses in the wild. This is such common knowledge that I won't even bother to provide names, as anyone can Google and find many, many examples.
Windows malware that can just automatically infect a Windows 7 machine just like that, no questions asked? No way.
Who said anything specific about Windows 7? Remember, there are more Windows XP users out there than users of any other Windows version.
And Windows 7 (also not know as Windows 6.1) is the only available version of Windows and the only version of Windows still used. Windows 5, Windows 5.1 and Windows 6 are no longer used and have been removed from every PC they were installed onto, and have been replaced with Windows 7.
Luckily Microsoft was thinking of users of Windows 7 and their malware angst: How do I remove a computer virus?
Who cares about older versions of Windows. If you're asking 10 (or more) year old software you're just asking for it.
My statement about being able to use Windows without any antivirus software applies to Windows 7 and Vista.
My statement about being able to use Windows without any antivirus software applies to Windows 7 and Vista.
There are viruses in the wild that affect Vista, as well. You also forget that thousands of large companies still run XP as their corporate standard OS, so it's not about just a few individuals making the choice to stick with XP.
Windows XP still holds 60% market share in corporations
Corporations usually have security systems in place that can stop malware or just about any unauthorized piece of software.
In other words, they run antivirus, which is exactly what I originally stated:
Not an antivirus. There's software that forbids the user from running any kind of executable that's not on the authorized list. And I don't think this practice is restricted to PCs either.
I challenge you to find any large corporation running Windows XP (or likely any other Windows version) that isn't running antivirus as a standard requirement.
Yes, as an additional layer of defense. But not a particularly effective one.
Look, if you're a large corporation and somebody wants to infect your computers, they're not gonna download a trojan off some forum, they're gonna make their own and no antivirus is going to detect it, at least for some time. That goes for both Windows and Mac.
That's why preventing foreign executables from running is much more important and effective.
You're changing the topic and your original argument. Now you want to debate methods of protection of corporate computers. Getting back on the topic at hand:
- I stated that "there are still Windows viruses in the wild, that can infect a computer without the users knowledge or permission."
- You claimed, "That's not true."
- It IS true and antivirus IS needed to defend against such Windows viruses, but it isn't needed to protect Mac OS X, since no such viruses exist in the wild for Mac OS X.
Ok then, that's not entirely true because that's restricted to some old versions of Windows.
If I said "You gotta be careful when using an iPhone because you can get hacked via Safari," Would you consider that statement true if it applied only to exploits for iPhone OS 1.x?
It applies to the majority of Windows computers in use, as the majority are not running Windows 7.
Windows 7's malware infection rate climbs, XP's falls
Last edited:
Ok that's your point of view. I say you have take into consideration the latest version.
This type of security software provides no protection against malware that corrupts a process already running in memory to use the process to run the payload. Unfortunately, most more sophisticated malware, such as browser exploits, now use this method.
There are some examples of malware in the wild that bypass UAC in post XP Windows OSs. These include Stuxnet and Syzor.
UAC has not shown itself to be very robust. If linked to a remote exploit, a UAC bypass would facilitate a virus that infects post XP Windows OSs.
So, it is not restricted to older Windows OSs or any OS if a local elevation of privileges (EoP) vulnerability exists that can be linked to a remote exploit.
Windows has a much higher incidence rate of these types of EoP vulnerabilities than other OSs. And, the Windows registry provides a relatively easy vector to link these two types of exploits that does not exist in other OSs.
The following link is also about a UAC bypass vulnerability.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12825218/
Last edited: