When was the last time you had a virus (if at all)?

M

mproud

macrumors regular
"Um... what's a virus?"

This is what I end up saying to people who ask me about new viruses, virus software, etc. 'Cause honestly, I don't have to give a damn about it.

So one of my net admins sent out an email about some new virus that infects computers through KaZaa, IRC, AND AIM! AAAHHH!! OMG-OMG! PANNNIC!!!!

Ha - Windows suckers!

(excuse me) Anyway, can you remember the last time your Mac was infected by a virus? If so, which virus and describe the situation. If not, perhaps you can elaborate why you've been virus-free.

Personally, I have never been infected with any viruses. This is my third generation computer ('89 MacSE, '95 PPC Performa, '00 G4 tower) and I don't feel the need to buy any anti-virus software, as a testament to my computer's security (or simply because virus authors only write viruses for PCs).
 
On my iBook, once and only once, and it was placed there deliberately. Luckily Ajax (a free anti-virus program) took care of it.

I know you wan't Mac knolege- but add this only to show how a virus can ruin a day, week, or more.

At work (mostly PCs), well here we had a lot of problems. Our CEO managed to click on an OL virus that shut the servers down for a good 3 days. The email system is still not working well. Locally, about an hour after it happened, a co-worker asked what I was doing. I told her about the network anomalies. "Well I accidentally clicked on an email and I think it was a virus." We were completely flickered. Across the network routers I saw the lights flicker, one by one the computers were being infected with a number of viruses, including Klez. It took a day to clean out everything. We lost some data, but luckily the SNAP servers were not hit. Neither were the Mac's.

My belief is that virus software needn't run in the background 24/7. It can't hurt to have it and to have it check downloads, or to have it on hand when something goes wrong. My suggestion is do progressive back ups once a week. At least then, you can restore your work.

Though it wasn’t on a Mac, getting a particularly nasty virus is a pain in the rear. That day was one of the worst days I have ever had at work. We run a tighter ship now, and we are all the happier for it.

The Mac's tend to be virus free for 2 reasons. There aren't a lot of Mac viruses out there, and most Mac users trash anything that looks suspicious. Mac's are still vulnerable to malicious Java, JavaScript, VB, and other macros- if you use them, but it's a low threat level. If your kids are loading apps. that your not familiar with, then you could be at risk also. I think that the AIM viruses are hoaxes, as for the Kaza and file share programs, there is a risk.
 
Once on my old iMac. I'm actually not sure if it was a virus, but at the time I didn't know enough about Macs to do some troubleshooting. I think that an installer screwed up my sytem folder or something. Anyway, I'm the only Mac user I've ever know to have one, so I guess we have a good track record.
 
i get a virus in media every 2 weeks in email. a windoze virus. :p

thanx to the "nice" friends that have broadband net, windoze peecee, no antivirus software, that click on every .pif and .exe anyone sends them ... and that use outlook and addressbook of windoze. :mad:

i normally fwd them to f-secure to know what viruses they are. and then forward them to one mac user friend who collects windoze viruses. :)

a mac or *x virus? NEVER seen.
 
I got a virus off of a Mac 512 that the grandmother of a friend of mine had sitting in her closet. That's the only virus for a Mac I've ever encountered.
 
Last time I check, windows 3.11 at my high school computer lab got infected by virus 'cause people where uploading all sorts of crap onto the HD. But personally, I've never ran into any virus on my PC (from DOS 6.1 to WinXP Pro) or Mac (OS 7.6 to Jaguar). And no, I'm not obsessed about virus scanning. I do that w/ AVG about once every quarter. Actually, I don't remember when's the last time I did a virus scan.
 
Os 9, with my 233 iMac.

I got a word macro virus that (somehow) knew I was a mac user and downloaded a mac virus... :eek:

Stoped my comp from running for about 2 days... none so far in Os X.
 
Had a virus last week. Think it was from that guy coughing emphatically in the elevator. Thank god for Dayquil. :D
 
I'll be honest. I've never personally gotten a virus, even when I ran Windows ME, then XP, with no virus protection. That being said, however, everyone around me has gotten virii on multiple occassions. My dad got a particuarly nasty one when he was still running Win95, and it shut down the whole machine. I mean, nothing was salvagable. Actually, looking back, I think that happened twice.

My grandmother gets them CONSTANTLY, and I can't figure out how. She even has anti-virus, yet, every time I go over there for computer stuff (about every two weeks), I run a scan and find 10-15 new viruses. The scanner always says it gets rid of them all, but now I'm not so sure. I mean, hell, she doesn't even get e-mail AT ALL, nevermind something that could be infected.

My girlfriend had a few that completely killed her computer. Best of all, when I went to reformat it, the Dell Recue Disk DID NOT HAVE WINDOWS ON IT, despite the label of the disk saying, "This disk contains all neccesary software, including your operatin system". She called up Dell about it, but they just told her she was SOL. She's now a happy Mandrake linux user :D


Anyways, since I'm now running linux, the chances of catching a virus are very slim. How many viruses are there for linux? 5? :p
 
ft030513.gif

hehe
actually i've only gotten like 10 viruses...all on my PC. I still have yet to get a virus on any of my Macs.
 
i had a floppy full of mac viruses back around OS 6...probably prior to that even. they were actually funny viruses that would show you they were messing stuff up, like godzilla running across the screen and everything on the screen crumbling...that one for sure just deleted random stuff from your hard drive. it was great!
 
The only thing I've ever encountered remotely close to a virus was the Worm Virus some years back. There was a Worm Remover application we used to run in the computer labs at school for this.
 
in all my years of Mac use (about 15) i've never had a single virus, worm, or other infectious bug in any Mac i've owned. lately i'll get an occasional email that has a virus-infected attachment in it and i'll just laugh and throw it in the trash.
 
Yesterday!..

It was a worm, i do not remember the name..
I was downloading program files from Kazaa and the Norton Antivirus just found the virus!!

Actually, I didn't panic.. :D because if there are two things that I believe in my peecee, they are my backups and Norton!.. :)

what i'd recommend is, buy a superdrive, and backup your files onces 2 months... and do not afraid of viruses... in the film "The Score", Robert DeNiro said something like : "If there is someone who made this case, there is someone to brake it!" ;)
 
One. way back on my Mac SE, i did it deliberately to test out SAM (remember that?)...

even back then, symantec was on the ball... it caught it perfectly.

pnw
 
I have never got a virus. Never ever ever.

Edit: If anyone saw my totally irrelevant post before it was because I wanted to post a new thread, but got caught up in reading this one. I'll post my new thread elsewhere. :)
 
My Performa 405 contracted the Melissa virus many years ago. That's it. After all these years, just the one. I love it.

Regards,
Gus
 
Four on my windoze.

About a year ago a friend said she received a virus from my iMac on her peecee. I loaded the most current virus software and found nothing. Everytime she receives an email from me, her virus software states that it's infected. I send emails to my work computer and its virus protection program never detects anything.

I've never had a problem with viruses on my macs. Though I bet this would be different if we had 90% or more of the computer market.
 
Four on my windoze.

About a year ago a friend said she received a virus from my iMac on her peecee. I loaded the most current virus software and found nothing. Everytime she receives an email from me, her virus software states that it's infected. I send emails to my work computer and its virus protection program never detects anything.

I've never had a problem with viruses on my macs. Though I bet this would be different if we had 90% or more of the computer market.
 
None on my Windows XP, nor on 2000, box ever, even with Outlook 2003, etc etc. I had several with Windows 95/98 which Norton simply detected. One time Norton didn't detect one, and I had to fix it manually since I knew where the usual places are. Pre-OS 9 and Windows-9x series are horrible for viruses. I'll admit OS X is better for virus, since no one really writes a virus, however, one could make command script to really fsck your drive if you accidently run it under root. That's why we have "non-administrator" users on modern multitasking, multiuser operating systems such as UNIX, Windows NT, etc. If one viruses impacts a normal user, it shouldn't hit the entire computer, just that certain user. (a bit off topic) I wonder if other server software for other server OS than Windows Server 2003 has something like "Volume Shadow Copy." That is an awesome feature and is worth the extra space they hold because you can save multiple copies of the same thing as backups. If your local copy happens to be virus-infected, just download the one you saved on the server. Or delete that file, you can restore it from the server. If anyone knows, please let me know.

I guess I'm just a knowledgeable computer user in general.
 
Dose M$ Office count as a Virus? lol. We have to use MSO 98 at our school God is it slow and boy do we have the freeze ups. But in my home desktop, my iMac never had a virus. As for my parents....we got both of our computers at the same time, just a few months apart. In there first year of having there "PC" they had about 10 viruses. There were many-a-days spending trying to whip the C drive and reinstall Windows. I could have used that time to...actually get somthing done on my Mac.
 
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