Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

mac viruses

jefhatfield

jefhatfield

Retired
Original poster
Jul 9, 2000
8,803
0
has anyone been hit with a mac virus yet?

having used macs or apples on and off since '79, i have been ok

but yesterday, on my pc laptop, i got the plez4 virus which disables and hides the anti-virus program

it loads a small .bat program which comes from an email from a familiar person...in this case, a college computer science professor

i had to restore disk my entire system to get it back to normal and i lost one piece of data which i never bothered to back up

only once before did i get a pc virus, but a mac virus is so remote a possibility, that i am glad i have at least one mac:p
 
and the first time i got a pc virus, my 1998 era mcafee squashed it

but i still have this ancient mcafee program on my pc so it obviously did not catch plez4 but the antivirus makers already have a patch for it online

i guess i better go to the store and replace my 1998 mcafee with a 2002 mcafee, assuiming it will work for windows 98...otherwise, i do have norton anti virus from 2000...but i would have to uninstall mcafee to make norton run at its best...pain

he he

i did once have norton and mcafee running on a mac once at the same time and i had no problems whatsoever

one of my clients has done this for many years on many different macs without incident

on pcs though, running two anti virus programs together can mess stuff up

but, maybe i shouldn't say it on this site, but i am glad that i also have a pc to go along with my mac...i admit to being into easy off the shelf programs from time to time

i wish there were more mac games in the stores where i live...what games there are, maybe 25 of them total in three stores, are overpriced
 
I got a virus on a Mac Plus once... must have been '85 or '86. Never seen one since. I haven't even heard of any viruses written for OS X...
 
My father caught a virus on his recently purchased iMac 500 (last G3 model). What happened was he couldn't boot up the computer directly or from the CD. He had to call up for service (could have been SmallDog, where he might have purchased the computer) to get around the problem. I am not even sure if this was from an email att. or what.

Luckily I have a copy of Norton on my Cube to prevent certain accidents like this. :p
 
maybe jusy unix viruses, thats could cause alot of trouble for Apple since not every person is Unix literate ie. ME

so I wouldn't have a clue what to do if a unix virus hits

amd no I' have never had any viruses in my 3.5 years of machood
 
M$ Virii

I seem to recall being infected with a Word Macro Virus once--one I picked up from a PC in '94 or so. It changed all my docs into templates. It may sound like nothing, but it was a hassle. I don't know how pervasive Word macro viruses are anymore, but they were a real pain in the ass when I was doing support in grad school. This particular one infected all the computers there before Symantec put out virus defs update. Many students infected their home computers. It was ugly.

I haven't had any "real" viruses on any of my Macs, though--nothing written for the platform.

Chris
 
Originally posted by Beej
I got a virus on a Mac Plus once... must have been '85 or '86. Never seen one since. I haven't even heard of any viruses written for OS X...
Click to expand...

Same here... I believe it was a strain of CDEF. It even popped up on one of the office computers just a few years ago! But haven't seen any since.

If it's one thing I love Apple for, it's the overall virus security.
 
ive never gotten a mac virus before, either...

i guess ive been lucky though, cause ive only been hit by a virus that i infexcted myslef with :D ...

i dl'ed the "girlfriend" backdoor virus to test it out before i knew about vnc.. and i didnt realize the complications.. :rolleyes: ...

i guess i dont get too many emails.. thats prolly why..

-f
 
os9.1 was hit last fall with something embedded in a Yahoo email. It grabbed all the li'l bits of programs buried in the System Folder and splatted them in the root directory. The spam email was from something called "263.net".
 

Attachments

  • trashedhd.gif
    trashedhd.gif
    18 KB · Views: 221
More recently, though, that Virex program included with paid .Mac membership found something in my MacOS X Mail client inbox -- and it wasn't a Klez variant meant for the Windows registry.

And, BTW, y'all should have a firewall on your systems. I've had more Trojan Horse attempts by someone out there in cyberland (on both my PC and iBook) than I thought existed. (At least one a day.)
 
those trojan horse attempts are just people port scanning looking for someone who is infected. yur isp might do it as well for security issues. most universities scan for trojans as well.

i have a small collection of mac virii (plenty of pc ones) always wanted to test them out, but never felt like cleaning up afterwards. now that im all osx none of them will work anymore anyways. nothing really malicious or good exists for the mac. if someone created a silk rope for the mac we might be in a bit more trouble, but it seems like a small market share and general respect has saved all of us mac users a lot of trouble. lil script type virii exist since they are easy to forge but often they are very targetted (like gaining access to a hotline server's computer).

maybe once racks of xserves get more market penetrtion we will see some more creative virii. i mean who wouldnt like to get their hands on a render farm for a day?
 
Only once have I encourtered a (possible) virus. A few months ago at my summer job I was trying to consolidate a few excel files and Virex found something on a 10 year old floppy. It said it fixed it but a few minutes later, BOOM, the Mac was down. Took about an hour to repair, two run throughs with Norton and a few other things. I still have no idea what did it. Could have even been iTunes (that computer, early G3, really doesn't like it).
 
i have been infected serval times in my pc world. and yes, there are mac (OS 9 and before) problems out there as well. for the love of god, please don't run more than 1 virus protector program on your machine. they are VERY powerful (read: potentially destructive) programs. virus definitions are updated monthly by all virus protection software manufactures. if you go out today and buy "virus killer app 2002 pro golden promise this will work" today at your local computer store, it is OUTDATED!!!! you will have to go online to update the virus definitions.

sorry if i sound like your dad or something. i work at a state university as a network technician. professors are the worst about opening infected mail.

cheers!
john
 
I got hit with one about a year ago under OS 9. It didn't really do anything except embed a resouce in any file or program I opened while it was there. Easy enough to get rid of with Disinfecant. I forgot the name, it may have been a Sevendust variant.
 
Zero viruses on either any of my Mac systems or the pc's I have built. I make it a point to NOT setup email on the pc's since that is how the majority of viruses get transmitted in the pc world. I also make sure that my NAV definitions are up to date on my computers... I also don't open attachements unless I have specifically asked for the file (and get the file name before the email arrives). A moderate amount of caution and common sense will go a long way in keeping you virus free.
 
Originally posted by AlphaTech
Zero viruses on either any of my Mac systems or the pc's I have built. I make it a point to NOT setup email on the pc's since that is how the majority of viruses get transmitted in the pc world. I also make sure that my NAV definitions are up to date on my computers... I also don't open attachements unless I have specifically asked for the file (and get the file name before the email arrives). A moderate amount of caution and common sense will go a long way in keeping you virus free.
Click to expand...
amen

:)
that sounded like a sermon
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back