Where's the Mac Love? (Was: Re: Advice on Purchasing home PC - TESCO or DELL??)

patflanel

C-3P0 wrote:

I have to agree as I have found two viruses on my mac and thats
why I have the latest norton security suite.

What virus was that?
What OS are you running?

C-3P0

I have OSX and like above I had two viruses so do you work for Mac
Im just glad I had Norton..........

patflanel

If you have had two viruses can you name them?
Or were they PC viruses which Norton caught?

C-3P0

One was Xdoom or something I cant quite remember and it wasnt a Norton thing
as I contacted apple and they said there was a couple of viruses just starting
to circulate and aimed at mac users, (I hate virus writing people)
leave me and my mac alone....

patflanel

C-3P0 wrote:

One was Xdoom or something I cant quite remember and it wasnt a Norton thing
as I contacted apple and they said there was a couple of viruses just starting
to circulate and aimed at mac users, (I hate virus writing people)
leave me and my mac alone....

I have not heard of this, so I apologise. I will have a look to see if I can find any info.

Nelly.t

I am a mac user and have been for many years. Never had a virus in all that time. I love osx for its ease of use and stability. I will buy osx for pc as soon as it comes out.

Nelly.

C-3P0

alexjohnson wrote:

Exactly. There are no Mac OS X viruses. None. Zero. Nada. It is possible Norton caught a PC virus you received by email but it could not have infected you. Seriously. This also means no spyware, and no keystroke loggers.

I'm not saying it will always be this way but Macs (as of 2005) are inherently more secure. Maybe that will change, but as of today, money spent on a Mac anti-virus is, in the nicest possible way, money wasted.

Im sorry but you are wrong, phone up or email mac, to say mac anti-virus
is a waste of money is bonkers, as you will find out to your cost.

This is sending out the wrong message to mac and PC users alike get antivirus now and a good firewall as prevention is better than cure....

I have never been one of those users who is a mac or PC devotee
macs are not as secure as you are lead to believe, nor are PCs

Take my advice and get some kind of protection now.


Edit: must go out shopping for pc parts :rolleyes:

patflanel

Checked the Norton site - NO VIRUS affects OS X (Proof of concept which Apple snagged)
Checked securemac. com - NO VIRUS for OSX
Googled for OS X Virus - NO VIRUS for OS X.
There is no known virus which affects OS X.
I really do hope you cannot prove me wrong.....

newfoundglory

alexjohnson wrote:

With the Apple Mac as well as what most people who know think is just a better user interface, there are no virus or security problems whatsoever. Stuff just works.

Disagree. While I accept that unix based operating systems are designed to be more secure than windows, that doesn't mean they are. Yes, there are less viruses for mac, but that doesnt mean they dont exist. Same for trojans. Cross-platform office macros are one example. Mac is better than windows at the moment, but that doesnt mean in a years time there arent going to be some more serious problems.

More people are buying macs, more people are connecting macs to windows networks, and apple have said they are moving to intel processors (viruses are mainly coded in assembly language -> there are more intel assembly language programmers then powerpc!).

Apple not so long ago released 44 patches, some of which were for buffer-overflow problems (the same problem which has plagued windows sytems!). You see, unix systems are ONLY more secure when the software for them is written properly, and given the fact we are about see an upcoming 10.4.3 update from apple containing another 1000 fixes and updates for Tiger i'm not so sure their software is written properely. Multiple problems were also found with panther.

Take the buffer overflow problem for example. This problem with the mac is far more critical than under windows. Why you ask? Because the unix command line is so much more powerful then windows! If you locate a buffer overflow in a program or process which runs as root/the superuser for example, then protentially any attacker can spawn commands as the superuser and do anything they want on the system. Same problem with applications which run as a normal user or one with administrator rights.

Yes, a malicious program would be more contained on OS X compared to windows due to file permissions... but that doesnt stop it accessing files and programs which that user has access too, and again permissions could be bypassed via a buffer overflow to break out into other parts of the system. It would be silly not to ensure you are protected with a more advanced firewall, antivirus and monitoring which programs are accessing the internet. BSD and Linux still rank above apple in terms of security. OpenBSD in particular which ranks as one of the most consistent in not having holes in the default install.

I'm a FreeBSD person myself. This contains some more advanced security features which can prevent an attacker or malicious problem changing the system, but again its not 100% secure. Not trying to be biased, but you have to look at the actual FACTS here... because some mac uers are living in fantasy land... and ultimately as more people buy macs they are going to face increasing problems...

newfoundglory

Apple hide the root account from everyday users... users wouldn't usually be logged on a root, but there are LOADS of background applications and daemons which run as root. You don't have to be logged on as root for example to take advantage of that. To see how many processes running as root alone there are, open up terminal (with spotlight for example), and type:

ps aux | grep root

and hit enter.

Add that to all the other processes... etc

I'm just concerned that a lot of people are getting caught up in apple hype and marketing which says there are NO malicious applications or problems, when in fact there are. The case right now is that there are just LESS in COMPARISON to windows. Those are the facts and truth. Don't beleive everything apple says, or everything you read on the internet.

My point is, by all means go and buy a mac... but don't think that is a get-out from installing security beyond out-of-the-box basics.