Mac and Virus question

[Habitus]

Hey all,

I have a interesting question! I'm running Leopard and windows on my Mac via VM ware fusion. I also use time machine. I attempted to download a youtube video the other day which led to nasty viruses on the windows side. Can viruses jump to the Mac OS and then to my Time Machine? It may be coincidence, but I freaked out after I re installed windows and the same virus appeared. I then re installed the Mac OS, but restored my Mac via Time Machine. Does anyone think the original virus ended up on my time machine and then back into my Mac and windows? I may be paranoid; I want to make sure I don't have viruses on my Mac using my Time machine. Thanks for the advice!

Habitus

Can viruses jump from a windows virtual machine to the Mac OS and then to Time Machine when backing up? Would the same virus then reload onto windows when restoring Time Machine?

 

[fireshot91]

A virus can not jump from a Mac OS to a Windows OS as it won't execute on OS X.


Any other form of spyware/malware/etc. can (I think)

Not sure if that's what you mean.

 

[Habitus]

Thanks for the quick reply; here's the issue:

I'm running windows via VM ware fusion on my Mac. I tried downloading a youtube video, which led to viruses on windows.

I reinstalled windows and the same virus appeared. I then reinstalled the Mac OS to be safe.

My question is could a virus from windows jumped to the mac OS and then onto timemachine, which would lead to the same virus coming back on my Mac when I performed a time machine restore? Sorry if I'm confusing, I think i'm a little paranoid.

Thanks for the advice

A virus can't jump from windows to the Mac OS?

 

[GGJstudios]

Yes, you can have a Windows virus file stored on a Mac. It will not affect the Mac, but if you transfer it to an unprotected Windows OS, including one you run via VMware Fusion, it can infect the Windows system.

 

[Jisuo]

There are no viruses on Mac.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Time Machine does also not back up Windows, so the "virus" is of your own doing each time.

 

[thepawn]

If you have Mac shared volumes that get mounted in the VM, the windows virus can hang out on there dormant until it gets reactivated by a windows vm.

Won't hurt the Mac perse (unless one of its traits to delete the volume while in windows), but it can haunt new installations of windows.

 

[Gav Mack]

Don't panic cos there's no windows trojan out there that can read your Leopard OSX partition.

If you want to clean the bootcamp part ask google and get 'hirens boot cd 9.9'. Boot off the disc and start mini windows xp. There's programs on there such as Spybot, Malwarebytes and AV software that can clean the OS of your infections.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Please do not post multiple threads on the same topic. We have already answered your question in the original thread.

 

[Habitus]

Won't hurt the Mac perse (unless one of its traits to delete the volume while in windows), but it can haunt new installations of windows.

Do you mean if one of the traits is to delete the windows volume or delete the Mac OS?

Thanks!

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Can viruses jump from a windows virtual machine to the Mac OS and then to Time Machine when backing up? Would the same virus then reload onto windows when restoring Time Machine?

Only if the Windows system has write access to OS X.

If a Windows virus exists on an OS X partition, it cannot do anything, as it can't run on OS X.

 

[thepawn]

What JF said - if the windows VM has write access to a Mac volume and gets a virus that deletes files, it can delete files off of the Mac volume it has rights to.

If you let the Windows VM have write access to "Macintosh HD" and it gets a bad virus, it can delete files from there and cause problems to your Mac install. Normally, this is not turned on by default unless you enable it in Parallels and such.

 

[spannerotoole]

Errr

If a virus is not dependent on any Library Files from windows then it could run on a mac. It would be easy enough to do a script to install it and run it.

Also Viruses written in Machine Code will run on any OS. Windows, Linux or OSX.

 

[GGJstudios]

There are no viruses on Mac.

Take the time to read the thread. The OP isn't talking about a Mac virus. They're talking about a Windows virus.

If a virus is not dependent on any Library Files from windows then it could run on a mac. It would be easy enough to do a script to install it and run it.
Also Viruses written in Machine Code will run on any OS. Windows, Linux or OSX.

That is absolutely false. No Windows virus can be made to execute on Mac OS X or Linux. The only way they could run is through a Windows emulator.

 

[Tallest Skil]

If a virus is not dependent on any Library Files from windows then it could run on a mac. It would be easy enough to do a script to install it and run it.

Okay, sonny. You just go ahead and write one of those and then come back and tell me it works.

Also Viruses written in Machine Code will run on any OS. Windows, Linux or OSX.

"This is an honor system virus. It's just ones and zeroes. Could you please run it through a compiler and open it on your computer? Thanks."

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

If a virus is not dependent on any Library Files from windows then it could run on a mac. It would be easy enough to do a script to install it and run it.

No.

Also Viruses written in Machine Code will run on any OS. Windows, Linux or OSX.

No, that would be more of a virus operating system. Wouldn't work unless you actually manually install it underneath the OS, which can't be done accidentally.