Questions about trojans not viruses

[u49aa2]

I understand the fact that mac don't get viruses and trojan will only hack into your system when you put your password. My question is:

If i download a torrent file do you think it make sense to use something like ClamXav to scan it before mounting and installing it into the system (As sometimes i will need to enter my password to install the torrent file) just to protect my self form trojans. i am thinking about using ClamXav ONLY to scan downloaded files through torrent.

NB: I can assure you that there are some torrent files which are not against copy right + sometimes i use a local network to download stuff from other people.

 

[EmperorDarius]

First of all, if you're going to scan your files, ClamXav is useless, at least for Mac malware (actually it's quite crappy at detecting Windows malware too). You should use iAntivirus for mac malware.
That would make kinda sense, though there might always be some new trojan. In that case, the best way would be to use Little Snitch and see if the file downloaded from the torrent is trying to connect to the internet (usually trojans do that immediately). If you see that kind of a suspicious behaviour, block the app from connecting with Little snitch and submit it to iAntivirus so that it can detect and remove it.

BUT, Little snitch is not free. If you're not really downloading very fishy things, a simple scan would be enough. Otherwise, go for LS.

 

[u49aa2]

First of all, if you're going to scan your files, ClamXav is useless, at least for Mac malware (actually it's quite crappy at detecting Windows malware too). You should use iAntivirus for mac malware.
That would make kinda sense, though there might always be some new trojan. In that case, the best way would be to use Little Snitch and see if the file downloaded from the torrent is trying to connect to the internet (usually trojans do that immediately). If you see that kind of a suspicious behaviour, block the app from connecting with Little snitch and submit it to iAntivirus so that it can detect and remove it.

BUT, Little snitch is not free. If you're not really downloading very fishy things, a simple scan would be enough. Otherwise, go for LS.

I will think about the little snitch thing. For now i will download iantivirus and use it to scan my torrents for trojans. Thanks for the advice

 

[u49aa2]

Sorry another question; I have noticed that with iantivirus you can only scan a folder by opening the iantivirus and choosing custom scan. I don't suppose you know if there is a plug, so that i can right click a folder and scan it (like you you can do with clamxav)

 

[EmperorDarius]

Sorry another question; I have noticed that with iantivirus you can only scan a folder by opening the iantivirus and choosing custom scan. I don't suppose you know if there is a plug, so that i can right click a folder and scan it (like you you can do with clamxav)

No, I don't know any way. But if you want you can keep iAntivirus open and it should automatically detect any malware by it's protection. It's really light on resources so you shouldn't have any problem, yet, if you want you can exclude all the folders except for the folder where you will download the torrents, so that it only scans them. Seems unnecessary to me though.

 

[u49aa2]

No, I don't know any way. But if you want you can keep iAntivirus open and it should automatically detect any malware by it's protection. It's really light on resources so you shouldn't have any problem, yet, if you want you can exclude all the folders except for the folder where you will download the torrents, so that it only scans them. Seems unnecessary to me though.

Just before i saw your answer, i did just this (i disabled the protection, added my desktop and download folders to custom scan) so that i can just use it when i download big torrents.

However now i see your answer about the program being light, i may just try activating the protection. I have 8G of RAM so i think i should be fine.

 

[u49aa2]

I just noticed an interesting thing. when you run the iantivirus and do the 4 fingers swipe, it does not appear as an active program. Even when you open force quit, it doesn't appear! Why is that?

Edit: forget what i said, it appears in the menu bar!

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

iAntiVirus lives in the menu bar, that's why it won't show up. You can still see it in the Activity Monitor. Turning on the protection won't hurt, iAV is a very lightweight program.

Just to clarify, ClamXAV doesn't detect OS X malware at all, it's Windows only.

 

[u49aa2]

Just to clarify, ClamXAV doesn't detect OS X malware at all, it's Windows only.

So all what they say in their website about being made for mac is a lot of crap?

 

[EmperorDarius]

So all what they say in their website about being made for mac is a lot of crap?

Basically, it's an antivirus for OS X which detects just Windows malware (as you can see by the screenshot on thier page). It's mediocre at detecting Windows malware and useless with OS X ones.

 

[u49aa2]

Thanks guys for the input, i am all sorted now