Viruses for macs

[luminosity]

So, I was just informed by my brother that Intel Macs are vulnerable to viruses because of their chips, and that these viruses don't need to be able to run on OS X.

Is this true, or is this just silly nonsense from an expert CIS teacher?

 

[EricNau]

Completely False.

The only truth to that statement is if you are running Windows on your intel Mac, your Windows partition is still vulnerable (just as it would be on any PC).

 

[zephead]

That's definitely under the category of "silly nonsense from an expert CIS teacher". Here's a tip: Don't take any Mac advice from a non-Mac user.

 

[Aniej]

That would be like saying BMWs are vulnerable to sudden explosion because they have an engine simply because a Honda with an engine once blew the heck up.

no viruses.

 

[luminosity]

Not surprised one bit. Just wanted to check and make sure.

 

[Aniej]

no worries, absolutely no harm in asking.

 

[rhoydotp]

So, I was just informed by my brother that Intel Macs are vulnerable to viruses because of their chips, and that these viruses don't need to be able to run on OS X.

Is this true, or is this just silly nonsense from an expert CIS teacher?

although not completely false, maybe 99.99% false. most viruses are written to exploit the OS' weakness so this is just a little bit of siliness

Don't take any Mac advice from a non-Mac user.

hahaha ... this is just bigotry in action

cmon, have you ever used any other OS other than Mac or Windows, for that matter? There are more OS and knowledge out there than this 2.

 

[gnasher729]

So, I was just informed by my brother that Intel Macs are vulnerable to viruses because of their chips, and that these viruses don't need to be able to run on OS X.

Is this true, or is this just silly nonsense from an expert CIS teacher?

Depends on what you mean by vulnerable. When I have my christmas party with all my old aunts and uncles I'm vulnerable against gunshots. I have no protection whatsoever. However, I am actually quite safe because none of the old dears have any guns or any intention to hurt me. A soldier in Iraq is much less vulnerable because he wears heavy body armor. Yet, he is much much much more likely to be killed, right?

The chip doesn't make a computer vulnerable. What makes it vulnerable is first bugs in programs, second carefully crafted data that turns the program bug from something that crashes your computer into something that does stuff you don't want it to do, third a vulnerable operating system.

A virus that is carefully crafted to attack Windows will just not work on a Macintosh. It would have to be designed specifically to attack a Macintosh, and nobody is doing that (at the moment). Once that happens, we get to the question what the operating system does about it. Not everyone is convinced that MacOS X is safer, but I have never, ever read any serious claims that MacOS X is less safe than Windows.

 

[yadmonkey]

There does seem to be a misunderstanding amongst some Mac users that Macs are invincible to viruses by merit of their hardware. And then they hear that Intel Macs can get viruses (because they can run Windows) and panic, thinking they're no longer invulnerable, forgetting that it's the OS that matters and not the hardware.

 

[k2k koos]

There does seem to be a misunderstanding amongst some Mac users that Macs are invincible to viruses by merit of their hardware. And then they hear that Intel Macs can get viruses (because they can run Windows) and panic, thinking they're no longer invulnerable, forgetting that it's the OS that matters and not the hardware.

So true, Intel is a chipmaker, and virusses don't roam in chips, they roam in software. And OS X so far has a pretty clean bill of health, and is pretty resilient to virusses. It will take time before there are any, maybe never, let's hope so, however it would be more realistic that there will be at some point, but nobody has yet to create a real virus for OS X , that bypasses all permissions, passwords, firewalls etc ...
Yes it's possible to make a program to cripple OS X, but in most cases you will have to personally let it in..