I repeatedly hear from people and see on forums like these that there are no known viruses for Mac. The director of the IT department at the college I go to (and work for) just told me today that there are around 4,000 known viruses for Mac and that I shouldn't believe all the false statements and rumors. Is this old news? True? I was surprised. Anybody want to weigh in on this one?
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Known viruses for Mac?
- Thread starter drossad
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There are no viruses for Mac. People will try however, to get you to install software without reading the information about it. But OS X requires a password to install anything on your HD so unless you're just installing random stuff you have nothing to worry about.
There are thousands of known viruses/trojans for OS9 and plenty for the previous systems. There are plenty of viruses for OSX, but as the previous poster said, you have to approve them being installed, so as long as you never enter your password when installing something questionable (and especially for anything from an email), then you have nothing to worry about at all.
Yeah, I have been visiting my buddy here in Canada for 3 weeks now. His brother is one of those pro-Vista people (sick bastard).
He keeps trying to find sites (that I have never heard of BTW) that say stuff like:
as of january 2008 there are ~160 known viruses for OS X.
I don't trust random sites that "claim" to have statistics. Everyone can make up statistics. Forfteen percent of all people know that!
He keeps trying to find sites (that I have never heard of BTW) that say stuff like:
as of january 2008 there are ~160 known viruses for OS X.
I don't trust random sites that "claim" to have statistics. Everyone can make up statistics. Forfteen percent of all people know that!
Nonsense. The number of Macs-specific viruses I have is something like 26. Most of those date back to System 6 and System 7. There were maybe one or two MacOS 9-era Mac viruses. However, the Mac-installation of Office was vulnerable to the plethora of Microsoft Office macro viruses including VBA malware scripts. As for trojans, they were not a significant threat to MacOS 9 or any previous version of the OS.
A virus, by definition, must operate on its own once it is on your computer. No user intervention is required. What you are describing is not a virus; it is a trojan. There are not thousands of Mac trojans.
Symantec's SARC site used to list every PC and Mac virus and every other threat. Before posting nonsense like this in the future, please Google the topic of Macintosh viruses and post some real information.
You're right. Don't believe the false statements and rumors. Like his. He needs to be fired.
Next time you see the IT director, ask for the names of just 10 "known" viruses for the Mac by:
1) specific name or identifier
2) date when the Mac virus was identified and observed in the wild
3) method of incursion
4) Mac OS X code exploited and threat level (i.e., system compromised, file deletion, code injection, hijack, etc.)
5) number of infected/compromised machines.
1) specific name or identifier
2) date when the Mac virus was identified and observed in the wild
3) method of incursion
4) Mac OS X code exploited and threat level (i.e., system compromised, file deletion, code injection, hijack, etc.)
5) number of infected/compromised machines.
I appreciate everybody's feedback, but you need to calm down MisterMe, I was just questioning what I had heard. I thought maybe guys like you, who know everything about Mac, would have some feedback. I'd rather get that than search Google. It's called community. I didn't expect to be berated. Besides, if you thought it was such an unworthy post than you shouldn't have replied.
Nonetheless, thanks for all your feedback.
I will definitely be questioning my IT guy some more for specific threat info.
Nonetheless, thanks for all your feedback.
I will definitely be questioning my IT guy some more for specific threat info.
Um, MisterMe was responding to disconap's posts, not yours. So, let's all calm down?
Trojans, sorry. I had a friend about ten years ago who had one of the beige G3 all-in-ones (which were rad) and he used to get them daily (he also downloaded tons of illegal warez/music, and actually he may have been running 8.5). I was barely online before OSX for anything other than mail/web browsing, so I've never had to deal with either.
Um, MisterMe was responding to disconap's posts, not yours. So, let's all calm down?
My apologies MisterMe. Thank you dejo.
You'll never encounter a virus.
I would dare to say that you can visit any website on the net and won't be infected by a virus or spyware unless you download & give permission to install shady software. Which basically won't be a virus then.
It's nothing like Windows, where you have to fear everything you download.
I would dare to say that you can visit any website on the net and won't be infected by a virus or spyware unless you download & give permission to install shady software. Which basically won't be a virus then.
It's nothing like Windows, where you have to fear everything you download.
No. Your "friend" may have had some problems, but that does not mean that he had malware. The biggest problems facing Macs prior to MacOS X were conflicting extensions. Your friend sounds like someone who loved to see three rows of extensions dance along the bottom of his screen during startup. Assuming that the extensions were up-to-date, then MacOS 9 was fairly stable once the user forced his extensions to load in proper order.
Nobody's safe - security researcher finds Intel CPU exploits
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08...emonstrate_attack_code_for_Intel_chips_1.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08...emonstrate_attack_code_for_Intel_chips_1.html
Does anyone know of the latest accurate count of Windows viruses? The last I heard was back in 2005. Any newer numbers?
Anyone who identifies a trojan and a virus as one and the same has been not reading far too much... not.
We know that there is a trojan. The only way to get it to do anything bad is to personally install it. Human error is the biggest virus there is.
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