Snow Leopard Antimalware Feature Gaining Publicity

[zombitronic]

Apologists will hail the news as a great proactive approach by Apple. The rest of us are wondering why Apple even bothered - considering how "in your face" Mac enthusiasts are about not being susceptible to malware - which is, of course, false.

I love these stereotypes and people who speak for "the rest of us." Apple adds a feature to improve security and anyone who takes this as a positive is an "apologist."

Of course, the correct way for "the rest of us" to view anything that Apple does nowadays is with a healthy dose of cynicism. I mean, what the hell, Apple should just fire all of their engineers and developers and replace them all with marketers and advertisers, right? Why even bother?

 

[Small White Car]

Can I turn this feature off??

I do not want to have SL turn into Vista where my OS turns into a high-security prison.

Disallow or proceed?

So wait, if your computer literally knows you have malware on your system (not suspects, but knows), you're telling me you'd rather not know and run it anyway?

Wha?

Apologists will hail the news as a great proactive approach by Apple. The rest of us are wondering why Apple even bothered - considering how "in your face" Mac enthusiasts are about not being susceptible to malware - which is, of course, false.

Ok, so YOU know that Macs get Malware, but you're wondering why they added this feature?

Again:

 

[dwman]

Personally I think the aple adverts should focus on the features Macs have rather than all the flaws windows pcs have. Because if you dont want the windows issues you install Linux for free. Yes the fanboys of PCS, mainly Dells have already started to stir up trouble. Personally I have a strong dislike of Dell machines.

Agree 100%. Getting tired of the same old message. They really need to start advocating the pros of a Mac instead focusing on why getting windows is such a bad idea. Personally, I also have a 9 year old Dell lappy that works great. A little slow at this point, but never had issues.

 

[themoonisdown09]

On another note, it makes it ironic that Apple commissioned the Mac vs PC commercial where the security guy for Vista was saying "Cancel or Allow" and OS X will now be doing this.

Can I turn this feature off??

I do not want to have SL turn into Vista where my OS turns into a high-security prison.

Disallow or proceed?

This prompt is not at all like the Vista prompts. Unless you're downloading files that contain malware, you should never see this prompt. Unlike Vista where the prompt popped up all the time.

 

[gnasher729]

Apologists will hail the news as a great proactive approach by Apple. The rest of us are wondering why Apple even bothered - considering how "in your face" Mac enthusiasts are about not being susceptible to malware - which is, of course, false.

It is called "defence in depth" - at least that is what the security people at my company tell us.

But if you thought about what this is actually doing, you might have figured out that although MacOS X is not vulnerable against viruses, some Macintosh users with very little brain are vulnerable to Trojans, and that's what this is protecting against.

 

[notjustjay]

There won't be a proliferation of malware - because Macs simply don't get virus', trojans, or suffer from malware like Windows machines do ... right?

Apologists will hail the news as a great proactive approach by Apple. The rest of us are wondering why Apple even bothered - considering how "in your face" Mac enthusiasts are about not being susceptible to malware - which is, of course, false.

Nobody (intelligent, anyway) says "Macs don't get viruses".

But in 8-9 years of OS X, there simply haven't been any.

Yes, there have been a couple of trojans and a couple of exploits. Yes, we need to be careful about what can happen in the future.

 

[RyanR.]

So, what does this mean?

1. What is malware?
2. Do Macs get a virus?
3. How would I know if I had a virus or "malware"?
4. Does this mean I have to start watching what people download on my mac's?
Thanks ahead for your answers.

 

[btownguy]

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

 

[ValSalva]

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

But isn't it better than Apple burying its head in the sand and pretending that a potential problem doesn't exist?

 

[slb]

Can I turn this feature off??

I do not want to have SL turn into Vista where my OS turns into a high-security prison.

Disallow or proceed?

You can't be serious. Scanning disk images for malware is not a "high-security prison."

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

You don't have to think about anything. This is automatic and done in the background. Few even knew it was in the Snow Leopard builds, because it's never seen.

The melodrama over something so trivial is completely ridiculous.

 

[Small White Car]

1. What is malware?
2. Do Macs get a virus?
3. How would I know if I had a virus or "malware"?
4. Does this mean I have to start watching what people download on my mac's?
Thanks ahead for your answers.

1) Malware is a program that does something bad, but you let it. For example, a program that asks "Click here for a fun program" and you click it and it erases your hard drive. That's malware because it's bad, but it's not a virus because you had to click "ok" whereas a virus would just do it without asking.

2) Not yet. Possible, in theory, but a lot harder than writing malware to trick people with, so that's what people try instead.

3) Hard to say, usually there would be some kind of negative effect you'd notice. Macs have had some malware that actually don't DO anything, they just exist to prove that they can exist. So in that case you may never know!

4) YES YES YES. If you don't know what people are doing to your computer, you could have anything happen!

 

[bytethese]

This prompt is not at all like the Vista prompts. Unless you're downloading files that contain malware, you should never see this prompt. Unlike Vista where the prompt popped up all the time.

Point being Macs never had a prompt of this type before.

 

[kurosov]

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

Or just not download pirated software and never have to worry about installing a trojan.

 

[apfhex]

Unfortunately the ignoramuses inclined to click on things they shouldn't or open attachments from people they don't know are probably just as likely to infect their Mac as they would a PC.

Unfortunately AV software can't protect against stupid.

Apple should lay off the "Macs don't get viruses" angle in their commercials, even though it's true. Was OK at first but it's just gotten silly now.

 

[SpeedFleX]

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

mhhh okay then just stand still and let the cat eat you?

I think its pretty cool that the trojan people were getting because they were downloading illegal software are now be helped from Apple themselves....

Strange move but somehow cool

 

[Povilas]

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

No, it's a simple precaution for those 3-4 things we encountered in a not so distant past. It's a good thing, because you don't need to search for it, system does it for you. Anyway as long as you do not use pirated software it's 0.0001% chance of getting into trouble.

 

[alent1234]

This prompt is not at all like the Vista prompts. Unless you're downloading files that contain malware, you should never see this prompt. Unlike Vista where the prompt popped up all the time.

it didn't pop up all the time, it just stayed up

at least that's what it seemed like when i had to go back to Vista from Windows 7 on one of my computers

 

[themoonisdown09]

Point being Macs never had a prompt of this type before.

They do, however, have a prompt when you try to open up a disk image file that was downloaded from the internet.

 

[dashiel]

There won't be a proliferation of malware - because Macs simply don't get virus', trojans, or suffer from malware like Windows machines do ... right?

clearly they don't suffer like windows machines. there has never been the type of havoc windows viruses/trojans/malware has caused. that's not to say they aren't immune, but empirically they don't suffer like windows machines do.

Apologists will hail the news as a great proactive approach by Apple. The rest of us are wondering why Apple even bothered - considering how "in your face" Mac enthusiasts are about not being susceptible to malware - which is, of course, false.

and yes it is a very nice proactive move, there are so far no mac viruses of note on record but there are two trojans. trojans are much harder to protect against as they rely on social engineering as an attack vector rather than programming vulnerabilities.

 

[iSee]

...
Apologists will hail the news as a great proactive approach by Apple. The rest of us are wondering why Apple even bothered - considering how "in your face" Mac enthusiasts are about not being susceptible to malware - which is, of course, false.

Right, only "apologists" could possibly be happy Apple is taking steps to protect OS X from malware.

Nice one, you really burned us.

 

[vmacintyre]

Bit of an over-reaction, don't you think, fellas? If there is an OS, there will be exploits for that OS. But the Mac has almost none and this is just another step to stay ahead of the game. Should Apple take Windows approach and do nothing until it's a rampant problem affecting a massive percentage of it's installed base?

I don't think so.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Hi

Strange, I have knowledge of Macs yet I deny that they ever get viruses. Can they be carriers? Sure. But they do not get infected. Perhaps I don't exist...

On another note, it makes it ironic that Apple commissioned the Mac vs PC commercial where the security guy for Vista was saying "Cancel or Allow" and OS X will now be doing this.

The "block" or "allow" is much more common and MUCH more annoying with third party firewalls. However, I think, Apple was poking fun specifically at the User Access Control ( UAC ) of Vista. Which is annoying and I disable it on my work PC. It's meant to restrict an account to a bit less than administrator. Where you must click "Continue" or "Cancel" ( or "Allow" or "Cancel" ) when running programs / installers that require administrative access. Unfortunately, most virus creators got around that fairly quickly. Non-admin users aren't given the option at all but rather an error that they don't have permission.

Anywho... I find this to be a good approach as long as Apple keeps it to simply scanning downloads ( Safari and Mail ) and not an active scan of everything like a traditional anti-virus program. Snow Leopard is about speed after-all.

 

[ericinboston]

Wait a sec...all the Mac Fanboys have been shouting for years that Mac has 0 viruses and 0 malware/spyware due to the OS's far superior technicalities...yet us non-Fanboys have been stating for years that the lack of Mac viruses/spyware is more about the economics of virus writers...if you are a virus/malware writer, you're gonna want to annoy the largest audience possible...so they always wrote stuff to attack Windows (and yes Macs back in the early 90s)...now that Apple is/has been gaining some momentum and marketshare, the writers are back.

Nobody likes malware/spyware/viruses/etc. They will always exist, in some amount...if you want to rid the planet of them, I would suggest world leaders agree on some international law that locks the writers away for years...or kills them...or whatever punishment they see fit. Clearly the computer industry "policing" themselves has not worked in the past 20+ years. I find it amazing that I can surf to a website and have it attempt (successful or not) to install stuff on my computer/browser without asking...how can that be legal?...why is it legal? That's like saying you walk into a store and people start sticking you with needles and probes and opening your wallet and whatever else...those actions are clearly illegal.

 

[zombitronic]

Point being Macs never had a prompt of this type before.

They do, however, have a prompt when you try to open up a disk image file that was downloaded from the internet.

I was also thinking about that. It's not exactly telling you that you have malware, but still preventative.

 

[fracai]

This is NOT a good thing. It is simply the beginning of the cat & mouse game we've all grown tired of on Windows. Now we have to think about scanners and definitions on our Macs. Here we go again.

This IS a good thing. Previously you received the warning that a download contained an application and to consider the source of the download. Now you're being told specifically when a download contains a known harmful payload. It's a precaution.
I highly doubt you'll have to worry about scanners and definitions. My bet is that any definitions are updated automatically and without prompting.

The only potential pitfall is if users further believe they're ultimately protected and drop other more effective behaviors.